


Nineteen-Eighty FOOD

by TheGoliathBeetle



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, FACE Family, Family Fluff, Gen, Humour, mentions of domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-26
Updated: 2015-08-25
Packaged: 2018-04-01 10:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4016347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheGoliathBeetle/pseuds/TheGoliathBeetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nineteen-Eighty FOOD: a cafe run by Alfred Jones and dedicated entirely to literature puns. Home to shy Matthew and his adopted father Francis. And ground zero for Arthur Kirkland's latest literary breakthrough. It's a perfectly normal place, believe us. Just try their special: William Butler Yeast. </p><p>Human!AU, FACE family, no pairings, all madness. Collab with Immortal x Snow from FanFiction(dot)Net. </p><p>Warnings: Language, mentions of domestic abuse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! So this fic has been posted from Fanfiction(dot)Net. You can find it on that website on Immortal x Snow's profile. The two of us have co-authored this mad little fic. XD
> 
> When the Author's Notes are in _italic_ , it's Immortal x Snow. When they're in **bold** , it's me, The Goliath Beetle! 
> 
> Happy reading :D

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _A/N: So, after a (very interesting and hilarious) series of events, The (wonderful) Goliath Beetle and I decided to do a collab about Alfred opening a cafe/bar with a boatload of food puns. We will be alternating chapters. Since I wrote this chapter, the A/N will be in italics. Hers will be in bold. That way, everyone can tell who did what. Capisce? (: Also, because I’m from the States and she’s from India, I will be writing in primarily American English. She will use British English.  
> _
> 
> _Of course, I say I wrote this chapter, but since I’m bad at humor, you can safely assume that if you laugh aloud at something, my partner in crime wrote it. The way we’re going about this, we wind up coming up with funny scenarios and writing dialogue at the same time, with one of us doing one person’s dialogue and the other writing the other character’s response. It’s just a blast that way. It’s like improv.  
> _
> 
> _Human names will be used in this fic, of course. Romulus Vargas, Helena Karpusi, and Hatshepsut Hassan are Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, and Ancient Egypt, respectively.  
> _
> 
> _We also played around with character ages. Although I usually write Matthew as older than Alfred, he is younger here: they are 17 and 21, respectively._
> 
> _Finally, this fic is just hella fun. I find it incredibly important to point this out. I once woke up to 44 messages from GB full of food puns. That is what comes out of fics like this. :’D  
> _
> 
> _Trigger warnings: domestic abuse, horrible food puns, and Shakesbeers. (I am actually serious about the domestic abuse. Please read at your own risk.)  
> _

“You’re fucking on, man.”

Gilbert cackled and took another swig of his now-flat Radler.

“Yeah, and I’m the queen of England. There’s no way in hell you can actually pull this off.”

The grinning young man downing Kentucky bourbon from a chipped shotglass decorated with drawings of the New York skyline, complete with American flags surrounding the silver-plated rim, couldn’t possibly plan to follow through with this. One minute, he was saying happiness consisted in having multiple chins in his most serious faux-intellectual voice; the next, he had decided to sell his apartment and go on a Mormon mission to southern Utah. (“You’re not even a Mormon, man.” “Yeah, but they have cool bikes ‘n pamphlets ‘n suits ‘n stuff, like s’riously.”)

But at Gilbert’s challenge, Alfred had a fist on the table, stars in his eyes (too much bourbon for him, Gilbert figured), and a determined if downright obnoxious grin.

“This. sounds. so. awesome. I have to do this. You have no idea.”

“If you want to be so broke your grandkids’ll starve, sure.”

“Are you drunk? I can totally pull this off.”

“I want some of whatever you’re smoking.”

“I’ve got some—”—Alfred finished off his bourbon and set down his shotglass next to ones from Texas and Idaho that had earlier that night held tequila and vodka, respectively—“—Wilde weed. Get it? Like Oscar Wilde?”

Gilbert almost choked on his beer.

“Man.” Alfred pushed back his chair and tried to stand, his legs wobbly and the world shakier. Gilbert’s house seemed to be quaking, as if a giant had picked it up and decided to shake the two young men out of it. So Alfred thought, at least. He liked the idea of a giant messing with his friend’s house. He put a hand on the sticky wooden table (a piece by Gilbert’s younger brother Ludwig had made by hand). “I am so excited. I’mma get started on this the second I get home.”

Gilbert stared at him for a moment, his mind blank; then, he shook his head and cracked up. More glory for him, anyway, if little Alfie failed. Which he certainly would.

“Just one thing.” Alfred tried to walk around the table, now covered with wet rings from their sweaty glasses, to Gilbert’s chair but wound up plopping down in the one (probably Ludwig’s) beside it. He put his hand back down on the table and leaned in toward the white-haired man.

“Sure. Go ahead, as long as it doesn’t involve chins or missionaries.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You get into my Wilde weed or something?” Alfred guffawed. “No, no, bu’ really, man. If I get this thing to work. Which I totally will. No problemo, mi amigo. I got this whole damn thing in the bag. The whole fucking enchilada.”

“Dude. Get to the point.”

“This enchilada’s takin’ OFF. And when it does, you’re gonna call me your superior for the rest of your life. And ever after.”

Gilbert rolled his eyes. Alfred, who had been leaning in closer and closer throughout his drunken monologue, now had his elbow digging into his side. If the kid couldn’t turn a profit with this ridiculous clusterfuck of a scheme, he might be able to twist some old lady’s arm into buying his stuff.

“Fine. I’ll even kiss your shoes.”

“Really? Sweet.”

“That was a joke, asshole.”

Alfred had already risen and snatched up the coat from the back of the chair. He shook like a runway model on too-high platform shoes as he walked, head held high, to the front door.

“Get ready to pucker up,” he said, giggling at his own joke, before smirking and slamming the door.

Gilbert pulled back the blinds a little and watched the blond collapse to his knees beside the flickering sidewalk streetlights and puke up what looked like everything he’d ever eaten. The young man then stood back up; shrugged; and continued to strut back to his apartment along the dark street, deserted but for the few cars that passed the young man by (slowing to a putt-putt pace when their headlights shone on his stumbling figure).

The older man hardly heard his brother walk up the creaky back stairs and ask where in the world his coat had gotten to.

He had a bet to worry about.

* * *

“Alfred, mon chou, my darling, how are you? You must not be faring all that well, since you are completely unaware that it is currently three in the morning.”

“Francis, I dunno how to make food.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally seen the light.” Francis yawned and rubbed one side of his face, his five o’ clock shadow scratching his palm. “But why are you telling me this—no, Matthew, it’s fine; go back to sleep.”

“No, no, Francis, you don’ get it.” Alfred poured himself another cup of burned Folgers, spilling half of it on his couch (a Craigslist find), and downed it within seconds despite the spinning of his stomach. He then wiped the coffee on his hands off on his dirty sweatpants. “I dunno how to make Hemingway Hashbrowns.”

“All this time I’ve known you, Alfred, and I’ve never realized you talk in your sleep.”

“I’m wide awake.” He groaned as he rubbed his head with ink-stained fingers. When he’d stumbled back into his second-floor apartment an hour ago, Alfred hadn’t been able to muster the energy to walk back to his bedroom and work at his desk. Only his couch; a T-Mobile phone book (which someone had tossed on his American flag doormat one morning), generally used as a doorstop but now beneath a piece of crumpled cardstock; and an endless supply of coffee stood at his disposal. “But I need help. I can’t figure out how to make Edgar Allen Poedding or Agatha Crispies.”

“What.” Francis turned on his bedside lamp and, sitting up, leaned against the headboard. His adopted son Matthew stood in the corner beside the door, but he tiptoed out of the room the moment the older man smiled and waved at him. Once his son’s door had clicked shut, Francis’s smile switched back to a frown. “Say that again. In English this time.”

“Not French?”

“You speak French like a Spanish cow.”

“And I’m the hungover one?” Alfred sniffed. “Maybe you need some of my coffee. It’s fresh Folgers.”

“It’s an idiom, you—never mind.” Francis didn’t dare comment on Alfred’s choice of “coffee.” “What exactly did you do? Were you and Gilbert playing drinking games again?”

“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you don’t do shots every time Ludwig frowns and crosses his arms. You have to set them on fire whenever he starts muttering to himself in some weird aggressive language, too. I always win, of course.”

Francis sighed and began to comb his fingers through his blond hair, pulling it back into a ponytail. His exhaustion had begun to tap on—no, assault—his shoulder. Fifty-hour workweeks at L’Inconnu just overwhelmed him these days, as did the bills that, no matter how much overtime he took on, he barely paid with two mouths to feed. And two bodies to clothe, of course.

“Come on, Alfred. I have to be up for work in two hours. What the hell did you do?”

“I made a bet that I would open a cafe based off books and writers. Just think of the puns, Francis. The puns. I have some great ones so far. Here, lemme read ‘em to you—“

Matthew came running back into Francis’s room at the sound of his phone crashing to the floor—and, much louder, his father clutching his sides and laughing his ass off.

“Hello? Francis? I know you’re awestruck by my brilliance, but I need some, y’know, verbal praise here.”

“You must be so drunk, Alfred. Machiavelli Mojitos? Dostowhisky?” Francis giggled. “No, no, they’re perfect. Simply parfait. That’s another one we could do, you know. Proust parfaits.”

Matthew blinked, a little horrified. Finally, finally, the man he was supposed to call his father had done it.

He’d gone completely mad.

And it got worse.

“But you know you can’t do this without me. It’s not like you can run a cafe, anyway.” By this point, Francis had swung himself out of bed and was tying back his stressed-forged ponytail. “You don’t know a thing about food, just drinks. You need me if you have any hope of seeing Gilbert make out with your shoes. Besides, my current job is just horrendous. The manager has me making burned potato chips and has the audacity to call them French fries. The audacity, Alfred.”

Matthew could hear his friend’s laughter on the other end of the line. In his excitement, Francis must have turned up the volume on his phone. That, or Alfred really had downed five too many Jack and Cokes.

Most likely both.

“So we’re on?”

“But of course, Alfred. I want to see this happen. No, I need to. I’ve been dreaming of handing back the ridiculous uniform they make me wear at work, anyway. This is so exciting. Yes, I’ll be over first thing after I take Matthew to school in the morning. Think, I have time to take my own son to school for once.” Francis smiled at Matthew, who had long since fallen back in the small pink chair on the other side of the room, chin on his knees, trying to process everything and figure out just what in the world went into a Julius Caesar Salad.

“Okay then.” The younger man nearly tripped over his chair on his way to the kitchen for another dose of caffeine. “I’ll just be here coming up with more awesomeness. No rush or anything. I just bought the space beneath me that they’ve had open for the last, like, five years or whatever. Man, this is gonna be the best damn thing.”

“You—wait. Never mind.” Francis decided he probably didn’t want to know how Alfred secured a building deal in the middle of the night. “But how exactly are you paying for this?”

Matthew twisted a few strands of hair in his fingers.

“Lemonade stands when I was seven, duh. Opening a bar or cafe thing is my dream. What I told all my kindergarten teachers I wanted to do, what I signed in people’s yearbooks when I graduated from high school—I’ve been planning this shit for ages. Gilbert just kinda put the icing on the cake. Or the cherry on top of the sundae. The whipped cream on the shake. The Shakespeare Shake, I mean. Ooh, we could cross shakes and root beers and call them Shakesbeers. Whatcha think of that?”

Francis snorted and sat back down on his bed, shrugging and gesturing to his son that he’d be off the phone soon. Not that he wanted Alfred to shut up, of course. He spewed pure gold hungover, apparently.

He made a mental note of that (useful) quirk.

“Okay, then.” Francis said after ten more minutes of scheming with his friend. “Don’t give yourself a van Strokum coming up with more puns. À bientôt.”

On one side of the street, father and son looked at each other. On the other, Alfred sat in his apartment, surrounded by home remedies for hangovers and the beginnings of a recipe for More than Peas.

Something, at any rate, was happening, though Francis and Matthew at least weren’t quite sure what.

* * *

“I need two Franz Coffees at three near the bar with some Ketchup in the Rye to go at the counter—got that?”

“Yeah, no prob, and I have your Greene Beans and Holden Cauliflower.”

Matthew shifted his heavy backpack as he pulled open the door. Even at the front of the room, he could hear Alfred and Francis shouting orders to the cooks in the back and to each other, one balancing plates of pastries and hearty dishes on round black trays and the other mixing drinks at the small bar in the middle of the cafe, which smelled of strawberries, potatoes, and other random foodstuffs, all overwhelmed by something even better.

The smell of freshly bought and opened books.

The shelves all along the cafe creaked beneath the tomes big and small, old and new, famous and indie. When he had first filled them with the volumes, Matthew had worried that the wooden shelves would collapse if he did so much as run his finger along them to remove some dust. For the whole month and a half that Nineteen-Eighty FOOD—Alfred’s title, of course, given the unnecessary capitalization—had served all kinds of punny foods and lots of chuckles on the side for both the staff and the customers, everything had held together, physical and otherwise. Against all odds and despite all doubts (and he’d had several), the cafe drew in plenty of patrons, first-timers and regulars, and actually turned a profit, giving all of them decent money—including him.

But the teenager didn’t think much about the money (aside from what it saved Francis; he couldn’t let the man pay for everything, after all) he earned. He came for the books.

And because the cafe had, oddly enough, turned into his home.

Every afternoon, upon leaving school, Matthew arrived at the cafe an hour early for his shift, just so he could sit at his table right beside the bar and read. He liked to pick different things, perusing Waugh one day and Sinclair the next. At first, Francis had tried to talk to him about his day at school—did his calculus test go okay? would his history teacher ever leave his class alone? had the kids in his science class spoken to him yet?—but he’d soon learned to give Matthew his hour with his written words and leave out all spoken ones until his shift started.

“Are you sure you want to work?” Francis had asked when his son had first approached him. “You don’t have to, you know. You could do more things at school, or you could take more time on your homework or go spend time with kids your own age.”

Matthew had nodded. “I know. It’s okay. It’d keep me busy. And it’d keep me from being trouble.”

“Oh, Matthew.” Francis tucked his son’s hair behind his ear. “You’re never any trouble. I don’t want you to suggest that you are, okay?”

He nodded again. He nodded to Francis a lot. It saved him words that he figured he would have trouble saying.

“Whatcha got today, Mattie?”

Matthew looked up from his book into Alfred’s grinning face.

“Calvino.” He held up the thin paperback and showed it to his friend, who was putting a glass of something on his table. “If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler.”

“Hm. Any good?”

“I haven’t gotten far enough yet. It’s kinda weird, actually. All confusing and back-and-forth. I guess I just can’t understand it.”

“You’ve got a better chance than I do at getting that literature stuff. Anyway. You should try that.” Alfred pointed to the glass in front of Matthew. “I just made it for fun. Tell me how awesome it is.”

Matthew obeyed.

“Alfred, did you—did you put alcohol in this?” He held the glass to his nose, took a deep breath, and then made a face.

“Sh.” The older of the two friends winked. “If anyone asks, it’s a Jack London Fog.”

“But that’s not what it looks like at all, Al—or, okay, fine, you could just leave and let me sit here with contraband beverages. That’s fine, too.”

Matthew muttered the last half of his sentence to himself and, pushing the suspicious (but, he had to admit, delicious) drink to the other end of the table, picked up his book and continued to read. The chatter of customers at booths on the other side of the cafe providing reassuring background noise, he slipped into a dream, his mind wandering and his heart straying but always returning to where he was, safe in the home he’d made for himself for a few hours. Where he could watch people, but never have to speak to them. Where he could hear them and understand everything that ran through their minds and captured their hearts, without ever having to reveal any of himself as collateral for that intimacy.

Where everything had to be as brief as it was in reality—for within what seemed like ten minutes, Francis was tapping on his shoulder, and the dream ended just as quickly as he’d fallen asleep. Still, the one-sided friendships lingered in his thoughts as he closed the pages and followed the man to the backroom, wishing he could have just five more minutes in his literary bed. Wanting to hit the snooze button again and again, thinking that if he pressed it hard enough, it might just break the alarm clock altogether.

And then he could remain in the only world where people stayed and waited for him.

* * *

Alfred gave the bar one final swipe with his rag and waved to the last customer leaving the cafe. Beside him, Francis threw away a pair of plastic gloves he’d been wearing while making a batch of Agatha Crispies for the next morning, and Matthew cleared the back row of tables. Another busy day had gone and passed, leaving the three men exhausted but oddly rejuvenated, enriched and refreshed from their work. Something about leaving the cafe at night with sore feet, heavy eyelids, and tired voices made them want to wake up in the morning and do it all over again. Rinse and repeat, just without the monotony.

Every day, new customers came in, taken aback by the puns and requesting in quiet, shy whispers the “denouement” when they wanted to pay and leave. Despite their confusion, they returned within a week (whether for the food, the humor, or the atmosphere, no one ever knew; Francis claimed the former, Alfred the second, and Matthew the lattermost), and Alfred began to befriend many of them, especially the elderly trio of Romulus Vargas, Helena Karpusi, and Hatshepsut Hassan. When he didn’t have an overflowing pile of drink orders, he sat with them at their table by the window. Their favorite cafe, he found out, had been closed after some guy named Sadık Adnan had bought it, leading them to find a replacement. Helena and Hatshepsut had been worrying that Romulus would make them hang out in his living room every afternoon for the rest of their lives, when they’d walked past Nineteen-Eighty FOOD just days after it’d opened.

After raising their eyebrows at the bright sign, American flags hanging in the windows, and groan-inducing menu, they’d taken  a single bite of Francis’s food and had one chat with Alfred. They never turned back (although Romulus still kept his living room clean and ready just in case. He liked to have people over), even when Alfred begged Romulus for more war stories, Hatshepsut for old mummy movies, and Helena for her medical advice.

“I don’t want my doctor to be a hypocrite, you know. Can you help me find one who hasn’t taken the oath?”

“Hippocrates, Alfred. They all take the Hippocrates Oath.” She’d smile at him. “Believe me, you don’t want a doctor who hasn’t.”

“Wait, why is it plural?”

One day, when they’d finally sorted out Alfred’s problems with homophones, the young man had decided to pull out the coolest looking book on the shelf and show it to Helena.

“See, the cover is all worn and the writing’s faded and it looks so cool and stuff. It’s old, so you’d totally know something about it, right?”

Helena would take it and make a face—and not at Alfred’s quip about her age.

“Why do you have Aristotle in your cafe?”

“Oh, I didn’t know that was Aristotle. I just thought it was a cool book that I couldn’t read.”

“If you’re going to have Greek philosophy, you want Plato.”

“Why’sat?”

She’d wrinkle her nose. “Because Aristotle wasn’t even Greek. He was Macedonian.”

“Macewhatian?”

Still, the three elderly customers visited the cafe regularly and even complained if Alfred didn’t drop by their table at least once. To miss the rush and have more time with their newfound, naive friend, they’d stop by around three-thirty, right when Matthew came in from school, sometimes arriving at the same time as the teenager. He’d hold the door for them and smile and tell them that yes, his day had been fine and Alfred wasn’t too busy and weren’t they just having nice weather that week. No matter how quickly he’d scuttle off to his booth with his books, however, Matthew still found the three fascinating and often peered at them over the top of his tome. Not talking. Not even listening most of the time. Just watching.

As he did now with the strange man that had appeared at the front window.

* * *

Arthur Kirkland sighed, his breath turning white in front of his face as he swaddled himself in his coat. Adjusting the tight strap of his leather bag, he trudged down the dreary street, his feet soaked through his shoes from walking through deep puddles. Typical. Whenever he wanted to stay inside to work, the sun would shine through his window and the weather would be perfect for an inspirational walk through the park near his house. The rare times he decided to leave for a change of scenery, however, the rain always came down. In sheets, of course. Veritable cats and dogs pouring down yowling on his head.

Normally, Arthur preferred clouds and light drizzle. Even a little breeze with fog or mist in the morning pleased him. He worked best in what most people called gloom. Thrived in it.

Except when he got caught right in the middle of it.

The man struggled in vain to keep his umbrella under control in the wind. Every few seconds, it inverted, splattering cold water all over his face, until the metal cobweb-like frame inside snapped. Arthur swore and threw the useless umbrella behind him on the street near all the others that his fellow rain-soaked souls had abandoned either on the sidewalk or in the overflowing trashcans.

If only he’d been smarter and worn his waterproof jacket. But, as usual when he was struggling with his work, his head was in the clouds—literally and metaphorically—and he had only a flimsy hood to shield himself from the rain.

Time to find somewhere to take shelter.

Arthur turned left at the next intersection and hurried beneath the overhang of the apartment complex on his right. If he had to, he could walk home, of course, but the idea of spending ten more minutes in the storm without an umbrella hardly enticed him to turn around and head for his secluded neighborhood. If he could just spend an hour working and drying off—but all of the businesses on this street had closed within the past 20 minutes.

Just his fucking luck.

Then, like an angel descending into the late-night darkness—no, no, he couldn’t stand cheesy, overused similes like that—a neon sign just before the next corner caught his eye. Arthur looked at the sign in the window beside him. The Starbucks had just closed.

No other choice, then.

He squinted at the foggy window of the last building he wanted to be standing in front of. Neon signs weren’t exactly his thing, nor were the bright blue words flickering (the sign must have been going out, he figured) above his head. Nineteen-Eighty FOOD? Like 1984, the novel? What kind of a joke was the owner playing?

Arthur shivered. The inside of the cafe—he assumed that was what it was—shone with soft, quaint lights. The entire place seemed to radiate warmth. Or maybe he was just that cold. Yes, definitely just cold.

Home looked increasingly inviting with every moment he lingered outside the cafe. Surely the mad dash home wouldn’t kill him. Perhaps it would slaughter his dignity, but so would sitting in such a tacky place.

He was just turning on his heel when a quiet voice came from the door.

“Um, hi there.”

Arthur glanced over his shoulder and wished right away that he hadn’t. Not because the boy—or young man?—standing on the threshold repulsed him in any way. The blond didn’t have a broken nose or twisted mouth or anything of the sort. In reality, he looked just about average for a teenager, though more awkward than usual with his red face and uncertain eyes and messy short ponytail.

That awkwardness killed Arthur.

He couldn’t help but pity him.

Damn it.

“Hello.”

In response to Arthur’s greeting, the teenager opened the door a little more.

“I—we—well, they thought you might want to come inside because it’s so rainy out. Francis and Alfred, I mean. Not that you know who they are or anything.” His face turned even redder, the color spreading to his ears. “Well, yeah. You can come in if you want. It is raining pretty hard.”

Shit.

“I guess.” Arthur thought about asking if they would close soon but thought better of it. Might as well keep them as late as he could. He followed the youth inside and looked around for somewhere quiet and alone to sit.

There. A big booth in the very back.

Without waiting for someone to try to force him to sit elsewhere, Arthur hurried to the booth as quickly as he could while remaining dignified, removed his jacket, and sat down with his bag beside him. As he was removing his Macbook, a positively horrific man with his curly hair tied back with a blue ribbon appeared beside him with a menu.

“Look what the rain dragged in,” he said, sliding the menu in front of Arthur, who was dripping water all over the table. “You look absolutely miserable.”

“Go away.”

“And perfectly friendly, too.” He laughed. “Are you certain I can’t get you anything warm to drink? I’m almost tempted to put it on the house, you look so awful.”

Arthur glared at him, thinking he could frown the man away. Unfortunately, the opposite seemed to be true. The longer and harder he stared at him, the wider the strange, catlike man smiled.

“Let me see what you have first,” Arthur said, waving the other man away. “Go away for now.”

“But of course. My name’s Francis, if you need anything. Or you can ask Alfred. I’m not willing to abandon poor Matthew to that terrible stare of yours.”

The ponytailed teenager—Arthur assumed he was Matthew—stared from the other side of the cafe. Then, he dropped his gaze and clenched his hands into fists when Francis had his back turned to them both.

Arthur raised an eyebrow but said nothing, more concerned with warming himself and getting some work done. Inside, the cafe aroused a kind of wonder in him, with its dusty books and quill pens scattered throughout the shelves sagging beneath the weight of the volumes, thick and thin alike. When he took a deep breath, his heart beat faster at the smell of brand-new pages and ink. He put one hand down on the grey table and found it clean, without a trace of fingerprints or crumbs. Even the small lamp swinging above his head, its blue glass shade decorated with etchings of typewriter keys, cast the perfect light: not too bright as to blind him, but not too dim as to keep him fumbling around in the dark.

The neon sign and creepy waiter aside, he had stumbled upon heaven. A cozy paradise with everything he needed to thrive, even rain pelting the windows with him inside, snug and safe.

He turned on his computer, sentences and phrases already queuing in his head and falling into place by themselves too fast for him to control.

How the hell had he never found this place before? No more than fifteen minutes from his house at a Sunday-morning-stroll pace, and he’d never seen it. The thought of all the trouble working in here could have saved him made him a little queasy. No matter, Arthur supposed. He’d make up for it with a long night of work, business hours be damned. They couldn’t possibly throw him out.

As his laptop booted up, Arthur peered around the corner to make sure Francis wasn’t watching him; then, he peered at the menu he had left in the middle of the table.

And opened his eyes wide in horror.

“All righty then, sir.” Another man—where were they all coming from?—popped up at his elbow. “Can I get you something to drink? Not that you need anything, considering how much you’re dripping all over the place, but anyway.”

When Arthur didn’t respond, Alfred shrugged and pointed to a long list on the menu marked “Beverages.”

“I’m still making stuff at the bar if you really need some help with work. E.B. White Russians don’t take me too long to throw together.”

Still no response. At some point, Francis returned and started pointing to other things on the menu, which was shaking in Arthur’s hands.

“You still look miserable. Try a Franz coffee. Franz coffees solve problems.”

“They’ll give you a new outlook on life.” Alfred nodded. “Literally.”

When Arthur finally looked up at them, Alfred took a step back.

“Do you mean to tell me,” Arthur said, his voice clipped, “that these are all a bunch of stupid, childish jokes?”

“They’re not stupid. They’re genius. Just look at these. James and the Giant Peach Joyce, like James Joyce and James and the Giant Peach. It’s two puns in one. And it’s peach juice. That, too.”

“And there’s the Midsummer Night’s Drink,” said Francis with a giggle.

Arthur took a deep breath. It couldn’t be that bad. Not everything on this menu could be a joke. Just look at—

“But what about Baked Alaska? That’s pretty normal.” He folded his arms, satisfied.

“That one is pretty hard for most people.” Alfred preened. “But check it out—it’s for Alaska Young. Y’know, from the John Green book?”

Arthur sat in silence for a second too long. Then, he slammed his Macbook shut. Idyllic and inspirational or not, this place wouldn’t work.

“Thank you very much for absolutely nothing.”

Alfred snorted and elbowed Francis, who kept grinning at Arthur as he put on his jacket, picked up his bag, and pushed past the two on his way to the door.

Until he slipped and nearly fell on his face, Arthur hadn’t realized two things.

One, just how much water he had tracked into the cafe, and, by extension, just how wet the streets had gotten.

Two, that Matthew had stayed in the room the entire time and had strong enough arms to catch him and keep him from kissing the carpet.

“Are you all right?”

Arthur regained his poise faster than he comprehended what had happened, still confused though he was on his feet and standing up straight by the door.

“Erm, yes, yes, of course.” He brushed off his shoulders, adjusted his tie, and straightened his jacket. Beside him, Matthew stood with wide eyes behind his smudged glasses; on the other side of the cafe, Alfred snickered. “Thank you.”

He waited for Matthew to respond, but the teenager stood at his elbow, as if expecting something himself.

“What do you want?”

“Oh, um, nothing. I just didn’t know if you were leaving.”

Arthur sighed. Idiots on every side. At least this one proved more courteous than the two imbeciles tripping each other as they mopped up the water all over the tile floor.

Still, he couldn’t shake the atmosphere. Something about the dog-eared pages of the older, clearly used books and the warm glow of the soft lights awakened the deep romanticism he usually kept locked away, only brought out whenever he desperately needed to work.

Now, unfortunately, was one of those times. His inner starry-eyed child was tugging at the bars of his cage, ready to escape and run wild all over the pages.

And he needed it to run as free as it wanted to.

He sighed.

Stupid demanding editors. This was their fault.

“Is there any way,” he said, turning back to Matthew, “that I can just sit by myself in that corner over there without either of those oafs coming to bother me? I don’t need anything. I don’t want anything. Just let me sit there and leave me alone.”

Matthew looked up, seeming to consider this unusual request.

“Um, I guess that’s okay.”

Arthur didn’t wait for him to decide otherwise or think further. He glared over his shoulder at Alfred and Francis before making a point of sitting as far away from them as possible while remaining in the back of the cafe.

Then, he took his laptop out again.

And began to type.

* * *

Despite his promise, half-hearted—and maybe reluctant—as it was, Matthew didn’t keep the two owners (Arthur had settled on that conclusion as he waited for his laptop to come back to life for the second time, considering how they stayed late and spent their time alternating between setting up the cafe for the next morning and making faces at him) from disturbing Arthur’s peace. As he typed his first sentence of the night, beginning chapter ten, Alfred slid up next to him, mop in hand, and asked, “Are you writing something? Oh, lemme guess. ‘It was a dark and stormy night.’ Because it is, y’know.”

“Get out of here, arsehole.”

By the time he had reached chapter thirteen, two hours after he’d arrived, Francis was asking if he maybe wanted an Old Man and the Tea.

“It might help you win a Nobel Peas Prize,” said Alfred, who had already mopped the cafe floor three times and probably just wanted something to do.

“We. are. not. doing. this.”  Arthur slammed his laptop shut. “Go away. And Hemingway didn’t win a Nobel Peace Prize, you idiot.”

“Geez. Touchy, touchy. So defensive.”

“Well—he is right, though.”

Once again, the awkward teenager had come to his defense. Stumbling over himself as he did so, of course.

“What, him right about anything, Mattie?” Alfred laughed and threw an arm around Matthew’s shoulders.

“But Hemingway didn’t actually win a Nobel Peace Prize. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature.”

“Oh, I know that. I was just testing you.” Alfred grinned and struck a pose. “And I really wanted to make that pun.”

Arthur facepalmed.

“Didn’t he win it for For Whom the Bells Toll or something? The book about the Spanish Civil War?” Matthew looked back and forth between Alfred and Arthur, apparently ignoring Francis, who was leaning over the edge of the booth and looking at Arthur’s scrawl-covered notebook.

“For Whom the Bell Tolls,” Arthur said, swatting Francis’s hands away from his pen. “And he won it after he wrote The Old Man and the Sea. But you are right: he did write about the Spanish Civil War. Do you enjoy reading Hemingway?”

Matthew nodded and curled his fists again, squeezing them so tight his hands shook. Francis looked back at him and threw down Arthur’s pen. Out of the corner of his eye, Arthur watched him stare at Matthew’s fists as he moved to his side, his hands twitching a little as if ready to reach for the teenager. But he hesitated, and in that pause, Matthew shifted away from the three men.

Arthur recorded every tiny movement in his mind.

“I’m glad at least one of you has taste,” he said, returning to the (more obvious) matter at hand. “And get away from me, you hairy freak.”

Said hairy freak returned an hour later to tell him the cafe had closed hours ago and he really needed to go home, and, with Matthew asleep, glasses still on and face pressed into a book, Arthur only had one defense left.

He slammed down a crumpled $100 bill on the table.

Francis let him stay all night after that. At some point around page 250, Francis shook a startled (almost frightened, Arthur noted) Matthew awake and left the cafe with him, presumably to go home. When Alfred fell asleep at the bar in the middle of page 300, Arthur put in headphones to drown out the sound of his snoring. But finally, finally, when the sun rose just after seven in the morning, Arthur rubbed his eyes, packed up his computer, and headed home, ready to curl up in bed and get some sleep himself.

But only for a little while. Then, he had to email his agent.

Somehow, overnight, he’d produced a masterpiece.

With one hell of a backstory to accompany it.

* * *

Francis didn’t sleep that night.

Matthew did. He’d made sure of that. An hour after he’d sent his son to bed, he’d sneaked into his room to check on him and found him tightly wrapped in his blankets, facing the wall and breathing in a comforting rhythm.

But Francis found no reassurance in Matthew’s pleasant sleep. In fact, the calm made him wring his hands and shift in his chair at the table, where he sat with the worn copy of Alice in Wonderland that Matthew had fallen asleep on earlier and prayed with all he had that the underlining and writing in the margins wasn’t his son’s.

He ran his fingers through his hair unconsciously upon realizing that the handwriting looked just like Matthew’s.

Something—someone—was cannibalizing their peace.

If it had ever been more than a facade at all.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hello! This is The Goliath Beetle :D As you must have gathered from Immortal x Snow’s previous author’s note, we’re co-writing this fic. She wrote chapter one. I’m writing chapter two. And we’re going to alternate. ******
> 
> **This fic is primarily supposed to be funny. Its main objective is to make you roll your eyes and think, “What were these two smoking? Wilde weed?!” ******
> 
> ******Warnings for mentions of domestic abuse. (Because, if you’ve ever read any of our stories, the both of us love sad feels.) ******** **
> 
> **********On that happy note, enjoy this chapter :D The formatting is kind of all over the place. I lost a crap ton of italics and the spacing is weird. I'm sorry D: ******** ** ** **
> 
> **************(Also, ignore what that sweetheart Immortal x Snow said in the previous chapter. I can’t write humour to save my life, or her life, or anyone’s life, because I am a cold potato in the humour department.) ******** ** ** ** ** **
> 
> ******************And finally: I know that in canon, Ancient Greece is Greece’s mother, but here she’s his grandma. ******** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

An Indeterminate, Specifically Vague But Definitely Considerable (Yet Not Very Long) Time Later

 

* * *

“Matthew...mon coeur, wake up.”

 

Matthew had very delicate arms. Francis loved it when he slept like this, completely still. His breathing was always slow, his brow creaseless. He wouldn’t curl his fists or mumble or stutter. He wouldn’t recede into the quietest corners of any room, hiding away from the world.

 

Asleep, Matthew was calm. He opened up a little, his shoulders loosening, his hair falling over his eyes. His sleeves would ride up sometimes, exposing those delicate arms of his.

 

It was always the left one that made Francis cringe, because there, the damage was obvious. Three circular scars--cigarette burns--from when the boy was twelve, still stood out too prominently. The first time he saw them, Francis couldn’t bring himself to smoke for a whole month.

 

“Matthew?” He ran his hand through the teenager’s hair. Francis did not, as a matter of course, make too much physical contact with the boy. Matthew was terribly jumpy about being touched in any way, and while he didn’t outright flinch or shriek, he always visibly tensed. “You’ll get late for school. I’ve made you pancakes. With maple syrup.”

 

At the sound of those words, Matthew’s eyes slowly fluttered open. He squinted at the opposite wall for a second before his languid gaze met Francis’s eyes. “Good morning,” he mumbled sleepily, not making a move to get up.

 

“Did you fall asleep reading again?” Francis knew Matthew always liked reading himself to sleep. This usually meant he would stay up well past midnight. It was a silly question to even ask, really, because sticking out from under Matthew’s pillow was.

 

That. Book.

 

“Mmh, yes.” Matthew rubbed his eyes and slowly sat up, yawning and stretching. “Am I going to be late for school?”

 

Yes.

 

Francis let out an airy laugh. “Well, I was actually thinking you could take the day off.”

 

This caught Matthew’s attention instantly. He narrowed his eyes in a single flash of suspicion before his gaze retreated to something softer, something more uncertain. “Why?” he asked, already a little tense. “Is something wrong?”

 

“No,” Francis replied gently. “It’s just...well, how much school does one really need in a week? I mean, you went yesterday.”

 

“Yesterday was Monday. Today’s Tuesday.”

 

“Now you sound like that irritating Rebecca Black song.”

 

Matthew cracked a small grin. “Sorry.”

 

Though Francis was smiling, there was a silent scream of frustration forcing its way between his teeth. He wanted to keep an eye on Matthew, wanted to make sure everything was all right with him.

 

(One day, Francis had promised himself, one day, Matthew will trust me.)

 

(One day, Francis had promised himself, one day, Matthew will call me ‘Papa’.)

* * *

 

Mostly, they were locals. The three Awesome Oldies, as Alfred mentally referred to them, Antonio--who would pop in for a quick Franz Coffee during his lunch hour--Berwald and his friend Tino, who went to Matthew’s high school and sat in a quiet booth to do their homework--and Elizabeta, who would often pick up several of their famous bread rolls to take back home. (Apparently, her husband Roderich loved them, but felt it beneath him to visit a cafe that called its bread rolls William Butter Yeast.)

 

Occasionally, there’d be the travel-worn tourist looking for a place to pee. Alfred knew how to spot them instantly. They always had this look of wonder and exhaustion about them. Their clothes would be a little wrinkled, their faces a little dusty, and Alfred could sometimes spot an accent, too. They’d sit nervously at their tables and peer into the menus for a long time, emitting soft chuckles as they read the names.

 

Nineteen-Eighty FOOD was not a terribly famous place, but Alfred liked that. It was popular enough to break even and turn a healthy profit. They had a good reputation on Yelp too. But it still managed to keep its quiet, friendly air. He knew every single one of his customers, and every single one of his customers knew him.

 

They were all a family here.

 

“Mattie, watcha reading?” Alfred peered over Matthew’s shoulder. He knew it annoyed the other boy to no end, which was kind of the point.

 

Matthew lowered his book and raised an eyebrow, the two actions performed in such perfect synchronicity that it seemed almost scripted. “Animal Farm,” Matthew replied easily.

 

“Heeeeey, our meat platter is called Animal Farm!”

 

Alfred had initially even suggested that they have little toothpick flags sticking out of the meat, showing their names. The there would be three fat pieces of pork--called Napoleon, Snowball and Squealer. The leg of lamb would be called Muriel. The cows in Animal Farm didn’t have names, but Alfred wanted to call the beef Benjamin, and the chicken breast would be called Boxer--because, why not?

 

It was a brilliant idea.

 

Which Francis turned down instantly.

 

“We are not naming pieces of meat after characters in a political allegory!”

 

“It’s perfect, when you think about it,” Matthew had meekly supplied. “We’re all just pieces of meat in the eyes of the power-hungry.”

 

“Yeah, see! Mattie agrees! People will find it funny!”

 

“No.”

 

“Okay, forget it. Can I name the meat after Disney movies instead? At least those are easier to swallow. Pun intended, of course!” Alfred had laughed heartily to himself, holding his sides and wiping tears from his eyes. “We can call the pork Pumba, Piglet and Hamm. The lamb can be Djali--”

 

“Alfred, go wash the dishes.”

 

Anyway, bottom line was, Alfred didn’t get to name the meat. A shame, really. He had so many ideas.

 

“Is that pure maple syrup?” Alfred said suddenly, really looking at the stuff Matthew was sipping. He was drinking it from an actual whiskey glass, smacking his lips, his pink tongue poking out from between his teeth occasionally.

 

When Matthew did nothing but grin sneakily, Alfred smirked. “Dude. Niiiice. But really, I can out-drink you.”

 

“No, you can’t.” And Matthew turned his eyes back to his novel. Alfred reached forward and snatched the book away from him, ignoring Matthew’s cry of surprise.

 

“Anything you can do, I can do better,” Alfred sing-songed. “Including drinking pure maple syrup straight from a glass.”

 

“Is that a challenge?”

 

Alfred narrowed his eyes, his smirk deepening. “Why yes, yes it is. We’ll do it like shots.”

 

And that was how Francis found them half an hour later, clutching onto each other and giggling and hiccuping, with no less than seventeen shot glasses surrounding them and over three bottles of maple syrup lying empty on the table.

 

“We have customers to serve!” Francis tried to sound angry, but his rueful head-shaking (and that long, tired sigh), just made him seem exasperated.

 

“Dudethere’slike...nobodyhere...hehehehe…” Alfred’s rambles suddenly stopped and his eyes filled with tears. “Mattie I love you you’re the cutest friend I could ever have I love sugar so much maple yaaaay!”

 

“Maple,” Matthew agreed with a large, pacified smile. “Maple cakes. Honey. Winnie the Pooh.” He paused and with trembling hands, picked up an empty shot glass to examine the single trickle of syrup running down its side. “Diabetes.”

 

“So who won the bet?” Alfred piped up.

 

“I did.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Really, Alfred.”

 

“Bro.”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Hardcore, bro.”

 

* * *

The next afternoon began with a resounding crash. Alfred had been serving Grandpa Vargas his usual Edgar Allan Pie (they had two Poe-themed desserts, because Poe’s name was poerfect) when he heard it. Francis was in the kitchen with the door shut, so Alfred’s eyes went instantly to Mattie, who stood in the middle of the dining area with the shards of a plate at his feet.

 

“Whoops, excuse me!” Alfred jumped to his feet, “You okay, Mattie?”

 

Matthew was standing rigid, eyes trained downwards at the broken plate. And then slowly, his fingers started to curl up. Alfred noticed this instantly. He wasn’t sure what was going on inside Matthew’s head when he did that, but it happened at least a few times a week, and he always seemed more rattled afterwards.

 

Then, with a smile so forced it made clowns look friendly, Matthew looked about the dining room and said, “Sorry, everyone! Please, go back to your meals!”

 

The regulars all knew Matthew, of course. People stared in surprise, but Matthew’s shining reputation protected him from any negative attention. It didn’t take much for things to go back to normal in the cafe.

 

Except that Matthew was slowly, slowly, curling into himself.

 

Alfred almost didn’t notice it.

 

Almost.

 

Because it looked as though Matthew were kneeling to clean up his mess. It was only when he noticed his friend trembling that he thought, well, fuck.

 

He glanced only momentarily towards Grandpa Vargas. “Excuse me just a moment, okay?”

 

“Takphh youh thime,” the elderly man replied with his mouth full of pie.

 

Alfred darted towards the other boy, quickly said, “Wait, let me get a broom, you’ll--”

 

Too late.

 

Matthew let out a hiss and a soft cry, pulling back his hand as his finger plumed red.

 

“Crap, you okay?” Alfred got to Mattie just as things started to go to hell.

 

Something...happened...when Matthew saw the blood.

 

It seemed to break him.

 

Because all at once, his eyes filled and his breaths came in short, rapid gasps and in an instant, he started spewing out half-formed thoughts and it was all terrifying--

 

“Oh my gosh Alfred I’m so sorry oh my gosh I didn’t mean to--I--please don’t--sorry-- _no_!” and he was inching away from Alfred, shaking and crying, wiping his bleeding finger on his shirt, drowning in his own panic.

 

“Mattie.” Alfred’s eyes darted about the room. People were staring. He was making a scene, oh hell.

 

Getting Matthew in the kitchen was easy enough. He was light in Alfred’s arms, easy to steady. Matthew was protesting verbally, but his words were soft, and sounded more like terrified whimpers. Alfred wasn’t even sure what he was saying anymore, except, “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” over and over again.

 

Alfred was not used to such sudden changes in behavior. He hadn’t been expecting an almost 180-turn around in Matthew. So the second they got through the kitchen doors, the second Francis turned and saw them, Matthew’s trembling went completely still. And then he forcefully wrenched himself out of Alfred’s grasp, stumbled just slightly before reaching out and touching a wall for support. And then he forced another smile, but this one wasn’t terrifying or too fake. It was simply weak. It looked just about ready to slip off his features. Hell, the tears were still leaking out of his eyes, one drop at a time.

 

“Matthew?” Francis cried, swooping in on him. “Mon cher, what’s wrong? What happened?” He shot Alfred a look. _What did you DO?_

 

If it had been any other situation, Alfred would have found Francis’s protectiveness hilarious. Francis had really only been protective about his designer shoes, his one prized possession, harping on about tongues and welts in a manner that made Alfred wonder if Francis was only talking about his shoes.

 

So to see that protectiveness magnified like this should have been hilarious.

 

Except it wasn’t. It could never be.

 

_I didn’t do ANYTHING. He’s YOUR son. Fix him!_

 

“I’m fine,” Matthew said automatically. He took a step away from Francis. “Really. I’m fine. I just scraped my finger accidentally.” He glanced down at the bloody mess his hand had become. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I’m going to go clean this.”

 

“Mat--” Francis started, but like a wisp, Matthew had already disappeared out of the kitchen and to the bathroom to sort himself out.

 

Alfred watched Francis’s eyes follow him before the older man’s expression just fell. It almost looked like he was going to cry himself. Instead, Francis just bit his bottom lip, hard, before turning his back on Alfred and going back to the stove.

 

Alfred swallowed. “Mattie accidentally broke a plate.”

 

Francis froze in the middle of stirring cake batter. “Oh.”

 

Alfred shifted his weight from one foot to another. “I’ll...I’ll go clean it up.”

 

Francis nodded without turning around. “Please.”

 

* * *

Alfred could not sleep. After everything that happened today, how could he? He could still recall every detail of Matthew’s pale skin, his wide, terrified eyes, and his soft 'sorry, sorry, sorry'.

 

He was trying to forget.

 

And nothing was better for forgetting than late-night crap TV and cheap beers.

 

Alfred was channel-surfing, zoning out, tasting the acid of the alcohol on his tongue when a too-familiar voice caught his attention. He almost missed it, but that catch of the sharp, shapely English accent made him lower the remote and stare.

 

That guy...looked familiar. Unkempt blonde hair, plain suit and--if two furry caterpillars rolled around in glue, dropped themselves in dog hair, and then got drunk on the unswept floor of a salon, they’d still be less fat and furry than that guy’s eyebrows.

 

Alfred would recognise those eyebrows anywhere.

 

“Dude,” he said to himself, leaning forward and staring into the TV screen.

 

“And now, an exclusive interview with award-winning novelist, Arthur Kirkland. Mr. Kirkland has just released his new book, Confessions of a Man Caught in a Comma, a fascinating treatise on the inevitable nature of the human condition.” The interviewer, a pretty brunette, laughed flirtatiously at this Arthur Kirkland. “We’re happy to have you here this morning, Arthur.”

 

Morning, huh? So this must be a rerun. That made sense. Why would they screen an interview at two a.m.?

 

“It’s my pleasure, Sandra.”

 

“So Arthur, this is your seventh consecutive best-seller, isn’t it? That’s quite impressive. Congratulations!”

 

“Thank you, Sandra.”

 

Geez, Arthur had no camera presence at all, did he? Alfred sat back against his couch, watching in absolute fascination. Arthur was watching the interviewer with poorly-disguised smugness. Like, hey, look at me, I’m a pseudo-intellectual jackass who reads Joyce for fun.

 

Presently, Sandra said, “I think we’re all keen to hear about your interest human fallibility, as your books tend to center around that theme.”

 

Arthur cleared his throat, placing one hand over the other in an effort to look intelligent (‘effort’ being the operative word). “Well, it’s a subject that’s tickled the fancy of many a writer, of course. My interest is really in studying the various aspects of it. Another book of mine--The Phenomenological Pirates--is an example of the recklessness of human ambition. It’s also a philosophical analysis, trying to understand a simple question: why are we?--in all its different forms.”

 

“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” Alfred said aloud to the TV screen. “And Phenomenowhatical Pirates?”

 

“I see,” said Sandra, although she clearly did not. She smiled in a very pacifying, ‘I’m trying to be patient with you’ way. “And your latest book is about an inner sense of human self-worth and the loss of one’s direction, is that correct?”

 

“Well, I think that’s being a little textbook about it. If you wanted to sum it up in one sentence--which I doubt you could--that’s what you’d say, but of course, there’s so much more to it. It’s really a deeper questioning of what focuses us, what gives us a purpose to breathe, think, act.”

 

Arthur sounded boring.

 

“Right.” Sandra smiled at him again, saccharine as ever. “And is it true you finished the final draft of your book in a literary cafe?”

 

Wait. What.

 

“Yes,” Arthur said a little stiffly. “The Nineteen-Eighty FOOD in Sacramento.”

 

Sandra laughed. “Yes, I’ve heard rumour about that place from some other writers. People you know. Apparently they’ve made puns about writers. Like… what was it?”

 

“Franz Coffee,” Arthur supplied, now looking decidedly green. “Like Franz Kafka.”

 

Sandra laughed again. “How creative!”

 

Arthur’s lips became a thin line. “Indeed.”

 

And Alfred watched all of this in absolute astonishment. Then he bolted for the telephone and hastily punched in a number.

* * *

 

By now, Francis had become a little tired of Alfred’s late night, hysteria-infused phone calls.

 

“FRANCIS. FRANCIS. FRANCIS.”

 

“MON DIEU, WHAT DO YOU WANT? DO YOU KNOW HOW LATE IT IS?”

 

“TURN ON THE TV.”

 

“No!”

 

“TURN ON THE TV.” Alfred then hastily shouted the name of a TV channel. “DO IT. NOW. OHMYGOSH DO IT.”

 

“Is everything okay?” Matthew’s sleepy voice drifted into the room, and Francis had to lower the receiver (and then his voice) to respond.

 

“Alfred just called me in a mania.”

 

“Oh.” Matthew rubbed his eyes. He seemed to contemplate the severity of this for a moment, eyes scrunching up as he noticed Alfred’s voice shouting even through the receiver, filling the room with a sort of soft, tinny yelling. Deciding that Alfred did this too often and it wasn’t worth losing any sleep over, he turned around and ambled back to his room, saying, “I’m going back to bed.”

 

“Sleep well!” Francis called after him before pressing the bridge of his nose and putting the phone back to his ear. “Alfred,” he said in his most long-suffering tone, “Why do you need me to turn on the TV at two in the morning?”

 

“Because you need to watch this interview. Dude, hurry up, you’re going to miss it!!”

 

“Whose interview is it?” Francis asked, curious despite himself.

 

“You know that customer who came in that one time? In the rain? He looked like a smelly cat?”

 

“Who?” Francis wondered, his gaze drifting to the ceiling. “Heracles Karpusi?” he asked finally, because he always smelled of cats. “Why would Heracles be on TV?”

 

“Not him! The one who kept shouting about our puns! He left a hundred dollar bill and wrote something all night? Dude, apparently, that guy is a famous writer. Arthur Kirkland or something! And GUESS WHAT? YOU’LL NEVER GUESS!”

 

“WHAT?” Francis shouted back.

 

“HE FINISHED THE DRAFT OF HIS BOOK IN OUR CAFE. THAT NIGHT. AND HE MENTIONED THIS. ON TV.”

 

“Are you seri--”

 

“DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?”

 

“Alfred--”

 

“WE’RE FAMOUS, BRO. FAMOUS!! WE’RE GOING TO HAVE SO MANY CUSTOMERS! WE’LL BE RICH!”

 

“Somehow, I doubt that,” Francis said drily.

 

“AND HERE I THOUGHT HE WAS A BUM.”

 

“What sort of bum would have a MacBook Pro?”

 

“A tech-savvy bum, Francis,” Alfred said as though Francis had asked him something stupid like, does my hair look okay? (Of course it did. Francis’s hair was right up there with that of Michelangelo’s David.)

 

“BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” Alfred shouted. “THE POINT IS, THIS TIME TOMORROW, WE’RE GOING TO BE THE MOST POPULAR CAFE IN AMERICA!”

* * *

The problem was, Alfred was absolutely right.

* * *

  _One Week Later_

* * *

 

“...Grandpa Vargas...tell my family...that I love them...Tell them I’m sorry...tell them...tell them--”

 

“ALFRED! WE NEED TWO AGATHA CRISPIES, A FRANZ COFFEE AND AN OLD MAN AND THE TEA AT TABLE TWELVE!”

 

Alfred was not being dramatic when he said, “I think I’m going to faint.” He was already seeing spots as he jumped at the ferocity in Francis’s voice and turned violently. He hadn’t eaten today. He’d barely finished his coffee. For a whole week, he’d been dashing around like a mad headless chicken, serving people enough food to satisfy an entire army of Ronald Weasleys. Francis was going downright mental just cooking for everyone. (Alfred highly suspected that the fumes from the kitchen were making him a little high.) Matthew could only help out when he wasn’t at school, and even then, he was falling behind in all his classes because he didn’t have time to finish his homework.

 

(Some would call this child labour. Alfred didn’t dare remind Francis of that. He didn’t want to be beaten to death with a spatula.)

 

And their beloved, homely, tiny, sweet little cafe was _overrun_.

 

Apart from their regulars and the tourists, now they had all sorts of freaks sitting around, including businessmen, artists, annoying families, and the worst: hipsters.

 

“Snot-faced vintage-clothed Beat poetry-reading potheads,” Alfred muttered under his breath as he walked away from table seven, where an annoying hipster couple had asked for two Allen Gins-bergs--basically gin and tonic water--in the middle of the day. “I want to howl,” he added as he made the drinks. Then, “Who the hell am I talking to?” Then, “Nobody would even understand that pun.” Then, “Maybe Mattie would appreciate it.” Then, “Again, who the hell am I talking to?”

 

Over the course of the week, Alfred had nearly tripped over six different children, spilled almost twenty drinks, unintentionally insulted about three makeup-caked women (and one man), and asked a fat bald guy when the baby was due. (It was a total accident.) (Really.)

 

The cafe was loud these days. Disgustingly so. It wasn’t fun loud: nobody could even hear the rock ballads playing on the stereo. Only the sound of chaotic shrieking children could be heard, and if you managed to have a conversation over that din, it was always generously punctuated with doses of, “WHAT? I DIDN’T HEAR YOU!” reverberating through the room.

 

Alfred could easily hired another waiter or twenty. They certainly had the cash. The cafe was rolling in money, tips pouring in like manna from heaven. (If manna was a bunch of crumpled notes and chipped coins from the depths of a scratched wallet, handed over by someone wearing an ‘I don’t give a fuck about you, lesser mortal’ expression.)

 

But they couldn’t find anyone. Francis said they had to keep looking, it had only been two hours since they’d put up fliers, blah-blah-blah, but the only people who seemed interested were convicts or bored housewives or a terrifying combination of both.

 

“Grandma Karpusi, Grandma Hassan!” Alfred managed to call out as he (tried to) make his way through the crowd of people in the cafe. The two women had just entered, taking their seats at Grandpa Vargas’s table. Grandma Helena Karpusi was Heracles’s grandmother, and bore a resemblance. Her brown hair was quickly turning grey but her green eyes still maintained a very youthful light. Grandma Hatshepsut Hassan was darker with caramel eyes and black hair that somehow never lost its colour, though she was probably older than both her friends put together.

 

“What a lot of people there are here these days,” Grandma Helena said, looking around in wonder.

 

“Yes,” Alfred muttered as he handed them menu cards. “And all of them are so stupid.”

 

“Well, as Aristotle famously said,” she replied, her voice grand, “The intelligence of a creature known as a crowd is the square root of the number of people in it.”

 

Alfred stared. “Are you sure Aristotle said that?”

 

“Phu-lease,” Grandpa Vargas interjected, rolling his eyes, “That’s from Terry Prachett. My grandson Lovino loves Terry Prachett, so I know.”

 

“Buttface Lovino reads Terry Prachett?” Alfred cried. “Wait, no. Buttface Lovino _reads_?”

 

“Hey! I’m Greek!” Helena snapped. “I’d know what Aristotle said!”

 

“But you told me just the other day that Aristotle was Mace-Macedo--” Alfred just ran a hand through his hair. “Mace Windu.”

 

“Macedonian,” Hatshepsut said coolly, without looking at anyone. “And forgive Helena. She hasn’t taken her pills.”

 

“Pills for what?” asked Alfred.

 

“Insanity,” both Romulus and Hatshepsut said in unison.

 

“It’s _Alzheimer’s_ , you uncouth Romans.”

 

“Hey now!” Hatshepsut snapped, narrowing her eyes. “Please don’t call me a Roman.”

 

Romulus leaned forward, smirking. “Now, now, let me show you just how _uncouth_ Romans can be.”

 

“Ew.” Alfred just took a step back, shaking his head, hands up in surrender. “Just ew, Grandpa Vargas. I’m going to go. There.” He pointed vaguely at someone in the distance. “And you three can call me when you’re done flirting and being gross.”

 

Then a hand shot out to hold Alfred’s wrist, and the unnaturally strong Grandpa Vargas pulled him close to whisper in his ear. “Alfred,” he said, nearly laughing, “You love puns, don’t you?”

 

“Yeah, of course! Why?”

 

“How about this one: Viagra Woolf.”

 

Alfred let out an unmanly shriek, a flustered, “No!” and scuttled off, shouting, “ _You’re so ewww and GROSS_!”

* * *

 

The week moved onto the next week, as weeks were wont to do. Alfred saw the people he considered his family slowly crumble before him. It started with Matthew, who in an uncharacteristic burst of frustration smashed a pastry with his fist.

 

“Dude,” Alfred started, not sure what to say as Matthew’s previously band-aid covered hand was now caked in...well, cake.

 

“They asked for a Lady of the Cake!” he insisted, eyes glinting furiously. Vanilla cream fell from his fingers and onto the floor. “So I gave them a Lady of the Cake! Now they’re saying they asked for Edgar Allan Poedding! I’ll give them an Edgar Allan _Pounding_ , Alfred! They’ve been passive-aggressive demons since they got here!”

 

And then, after saying that, Matthew looked at the remains of the cake on his hand, the mess on the plate, and the slowly falling crumbs. Then, as Alfred (and Ed Sheeran), predicted, he crumbled like said pastry.

 

“I’m horrible.” He trembled, eyes filling. “I should have just listened to them more carefully. I’m sorry for losing my temper, Alfred. I’ll pay you back for that Lady of the Cake, I promise.”

 

“No, no, you don’t have to--”

 

But Matthew had already proceeded to slink off to the restrooms, where he would wash his hands, wipe his eyes, and then go to the kitchen to ask for Edgar Allan Poedding instead.

 

It was then Francis’s turn, as he, to boost his self-esteem and keep him going, wore his prized possession to work. Anyone with eyes could have told him this was a bad idea. Francis probably knew it was. Those leather shoes of his were very fine, very polished, not a scratch on them. Francis only wore them on special occasions, like birthdays or MasterChef finales. Never to work.

 

Because what happened was bound to happen, and at six in the evening, Alfred entered the kitchen to find Francis curled up into a little ball, howling.

 

“Francis! Francis, dude, are you all right?” Alfred looked up at Matthew, panicked, because Francis never broke down, ever, unless he was watching the last few minutes of Titanic. (He always turned on the waterworks just as Rose says, “I’ll never let go, I promise.” Good luck trying to get Francis to calm down after that. Good freaking luck.)

 

“I saw it happen,” Matthew said breathlessly, reaching out to pat Francis’s shoulder, but just about stopping himself.

 

“Saw what happen?”

 

Just then, the ball of human tears called Francis Bonnefoy let out a pathetic wail. “My SHOES. They just--and the eggs--and it’s all--” before promptly bursting into a fresh round of broken sobs.

 

“He was beating eggs,” Matthew started patiently, “And he placed the bowl on the counter. And while he was moving around to do something else, he knocked them over. And they fell on his shoes.”

 

“Oh. Shit.”

 

Francis let out a whimper.

 

“And that’s not all,” Matthew went on. “He basically freaked out when the eggs fell on his shoes, right? And then in the process, he knocked over the flour, milk and sugar and those fell too. On his shoes.”

 

“So basically,” Alfred summarised, “Francis made a cake out of leather Armanis?”

 

“It’s _Louis Vuitton_ , you uncultured American,” Francis wailed,  “And yes! I made a cake out of leather Louis Vuitton!” He finally uncurled himself slightly and looked up at Alfred.

 

Al had never seen Francis so… un-Francis-like. His eyes were red-rimmed, cheeks wet, snot running down his nose, lips very pink… He was the absolute picture of agony.

 

His shoes were another matter. The brown leather was now wet, white and yellow, garnished with sugar crystals and dripping milk and egg. How was Francis still wearing them? They looked disgusting.

 

“I’ll never be able to afford anything like these ever again,” Francis moaned, curling up and crying again.

 

Matthew finally knelt down and petted Francis’s shoulder gingerly. “There, there.”

 

“Maybe you can make a bet with Gilbert. Loser buys the other a pair of new Louis Vuittons. Then you make sure you win.” Alfred somehow felt that his comment wasn’t helping matters much. At least, that’s what he gathered from that withering look Matthew sent his way.

 

* * *

So it was after Matthew crumbled like a pastry after crumbling a pastry, and after Francis crumbled like a pastry after making a pastry of his designer shoes, that Alfred decided something had to be done.

 

And while he sat all alone, well after closing time, downing one cheap beer after another, that the thought struck him.

 

This was all Arthur Kirkland’s fault. If stupid Kirkland hadn’t come in that night and finished his stupid novel and mentioned their (wonderful) cafe in his stupid interview then Alfred and his friends (family) wouldn’t be in this stupid mess with these stupid customers.

 

And Francis would still have his precious shoes.

 

This was all Kirkland’s fault.

 

And Kirkland would have to pay.

 

Alfred reached for his smartphone before he knew what he even wanted to do, and opened the browser. He typed in:

 

_Artuf Kirkdlan famous authr concatc details_

 

After which Google said:

 

Did you mean: _**Arthur Kirkland** famous **author contact** details?_

 

To which Alfred said out loud, “Yes, obviously bro,” except that it sounded like, “Yesovioushly bruh,” before he took another large swig of beer. Then he pressed the polite spelling correction Google had so kindly provided, and opened the first link that popped up.

 

It was Arthur Stupidface Kirkland’s official website.

 

There was a contact number for his publisher’s office.

 

Alfred smirked as he stared at the digits, then proceeded to type them into his phone.

 

Nobody answered. (Nobody would; it was one-thirty in the morning.)

 

Alfred could have simply put the phone down. He should have. He could have walked away from doing something silly in his drunk fog. He should have.

 

But instead, he let the mechanical beep of the voicemail wash over him, and then left the nastiest message his alcohol-drenched brain could think of.

 

* * *

Alfred almost thought he was a Hangover movie (Part Four? Part Five? How many useless sequels does that series have, anyway?), because he couldn’t remember a thing. He had one hell of a headache, and random phrases, like sexually repressed porcupine and haggis-eating cannibalistic sheep floating around in his mind. He had no idea where they’d come from or even what they meant, but for now, his head hurt too much to care.

 

He’d fallen asleep on his couch, still in his clothes from yesterday, with a ghastly taste in his mouth. Alfred moved with the slow lumbering of a sloth underwater, his primary thought process consisting of: fuck sunlight and I love you, coffee. Several times he felt like throwing up, but the feeling passed and his stomach settled with some uneasy swirling.

 

How was he going to deal with work today? Maybe he could just call in sick.

 

Alfred stared blearily at his phone. The screen had a about a hundred cracks radiating all over, and no matter what he did, the damn thing wouldn’t switch on. “What did I even end up doing with it last night?” Alfred wondered, and for a moment, he had a vision of having thrown it across the room whilst screaming in an animalistic way.

 

Ugh, he’d had too many fucking beers.

 

Staggering to his ancient telephone and picking up the receiver, he dialed Francis automatically, quietly glad that he knew the number off by-heart.

 

“...Francis?”

 

“Alfred, you sound awful.”

 

“So do you, Francis.”

 

“You remember that one time I made you eat salad?”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“You sound worse than you did back then.”

 

“Yeah. You sound like shit too.”

 

“I had to throw away my shoes. So I had a little cry.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

“Me too. What’s up?”

 

“I want to call in sick.”

 

“Sick?”

 

“Yeah. I, uh, have a fever.”

 

“Sick?”

 

“That’s what having a fever means, right?”

 

“YOU SELFISH LITTLE BRAT!”

 

Francis’s sudden shriek tore through Alfred’s mobile, rammed into his eardrum and reverberated in the inside of his skull with concussion-inducing force, making Alfred audibly groan.

 

“I know you just drank yourself silly last night,” Francis went on, “That’s what you do. And you never get sick. You’re just hungover, and frankly, Alfred, I don’t care. I have enough to deal with. Like those customers and Matt--those customers!” He said the last bit a little hastily.

 

“What’s wrong with Matthew?” Alfred asked, pressing the back of his palm into his eye.

 

“Nothing,” Francis snapped. “Get your butt to work or I’ll make you eat salad again. For the rest of your life. No, you know what, I’ll go to Burger King and McDonalds with your picture, telling them that if you come in there asking for a hamburger, to not serve you.”

 

“That’s cruel. That’s just below the belt.”

 

“Yes,” Francis growled. “See you at work.”

 

When the line clicked, Alfred dropped his phone on the dining table and lowered his forehead to the placemat, groaning. He was going to need so much more coffee to get through today…

* * *

_Ring_

 

“MOMMY I WANT EXTRA CHOCOLATE IN MY PIE!”

 

“ALESSA, YOU PIPE DOWN THIS INSTANT!”

 

_Ring_

 

“Wait, so, ‘Inferno’ is the name of your chili?”

 

“Um, yes, it’s homemade.”

 

“I don’t get the literary reference.”

 

“Like...Dante’s Inferno?”

 

“...Who?”

 

“The Divine Comedy…? By Dante?”

 

“Is that a movie?”

 

“I don’t know, Marlene, sounds like some church stuff. Andrew--your name is Andrew, right?”

 

“Um, it’s Matthew--”

 

“Right, Andy, we consider ourselves reasonably well-read here, but you might want to explain this ‘Divine Comedy’ business.”

 

“Um...okay…”

 

_Ring_

 

“And so I told that bitch--”

 

“Don’t say bitch, you sexist pig!”

 

_Ring_

 

“Corporations are ruining the planet!”

 

“Yeah, down with Apple. I prefer android phones anyway.”

 

“No, you don’t get it! Corporations are--”

 

_Ring_

 

Alfred groaned loudly, not that anyone could hear his pitiful cries over the noise in the cafe. Rubbing his temples, he staggered his way down the length of the floor and put the phone to his ear. “Hey, sorry to keep you waiting. This is the Nineteen-Eighty FOOD and you’re speaking to Alfred. How may I help you?”

 

“Hi there,” said the oddly too-sugary voice on the other end. “I was just returning your wonderful call, which, by the way, made me buy fifteen new pairs of earplugs. And then I had to look up your little establishment on Yelp to get this number. But boy, I think it was worth it.”

 

“Uh, what?” Alfred asked, turning his back to the cafe and pressing the receiver into his ear a little harder. “Who is this?”

 

“In your own words--” the speaker paused, as though looking something up, “Arthur Fucking Kirkland.”

 

Those three little words hit Alfred like bullets in his brain. The night was coming back to him. The beer. His angst. The telephone. That message. It all came back to him in such force that he had to physically hold onto the bar counter, lest he fall down from the sheer shock of it. “Oh.” Alfred mumbled, ears ringing. “Oh, shit.”

 

“‘Oh shit’ is right. You threatened me within no less than half an inch of my life enough times that I could easily have you arrested this second."

 

"Dude. Omg. Dude. Listen." Alfred ran a shaky hand through his hair. He never, ever let his temper get the better of him. This wasn’t his first time in the service business. He'd worked as a waiter  and bartender in other restaurants for years now. "Listen. I'm sorry. I was drunk. And tired. And--and, look, honestly, there are so many PEOPLE here. All the time. I can't keep up."

 

“‘Omg’?” Arthur scoffed, “Can’t you even talk like a normal person, you blithering buffoon?”

 

Alfred was about to apologise again, on reflex. He knew he'd fucked up BADLY. He knew he'd have to say sorry at least five more times to make this okay. So what Arthur said caught him off guard. "Excuse me?"

 

"You heard what I said." An overdramatic, clipped huff sliced through the line. "I can't even take idiots like you seriously."

 

"That's rude." Alfred blinked, more surprised than anything. "You don't have to be so nasty. I mean, haven't you ever just had a little too many?"

 

"Don't talk to me about being rude or nasty when you're the one who threatened to, and I quote, ‘burn your bushy eyebrows off your face and feed them to frogs.’ I mean," Arthur said coolly, "That doesn't even make sense." He paused and then added, “You also called me, and once more I quote, ‘sexually repressed porcupine’ and ‘haggis-eating cannibalistic sheep.’ First of all, haggis is Scottish and I’m English, thank you very much. Secondly, what are you, twelve?”

 

Ah, so that explained those random phrases floating around in Alfred’s head.

 

Alfred was about to respond, hopefully with something passive-aggressive but intelligent, when he heard Francis shout from the kitchen, “ALFRED! MATTHEW SAYS YOU’VE BEEN IGNORING TABLE FOUR AND THEY WANT THEIR MACHIAVELLI MOJITOS! MERDE!”

 

Alfred was numb to the yelling. Instead, Francis’s harassed state as he slunk back into the kitchen only reminded him of why he’d called Kirkland up last night anyway. Because the people he cared about were stressed and unhappy. And because it was Arthur Fucking Kirkland’s fault.

 

Alfred narrowed his eyes. "You know," he said coldly into the phone, "This IS your fault. This is a family-run cafe and my family is running itself to the ground trying to keep it up. You reduced Francis to a crying mess and Mathew can't sit and read like he wants to, and it upsets him. Your fucking INTERVIEW ruined EVERYTHING. And don't tell me to hire more people because there are no decent candidates. So, Arthur Fucking Kirkland, FIX WHAT YOU DID."

 

“Fix it? FIX IT? I am not helping ANYONE who threatens to use my hair to wipe his pet alien’s arse!”

 

Alfred said nothing for a second, because even for him, that threat was creative. He only wished he remembered making it.

 

“I’ll sue you for libel!” Alfred shouted.

 

“Do you even know what libel means, you stupid wanker? You can’t sue me for libel!”

 

“I’ll sue you into the next--fuck,” and Alfred paused. For a bit.

 

“You can’t do that,” Arthur quips coldly. When Alfred didn’t reply, he added, “What, is Satan on the other line or something?”

 

Arthur was right. Alfred wasn’t entirely sure what libel even was. The word reminded him of catfood for some reason. Maybe because he’d came across the word in a Garfield comic once. But anyway, it sounded official and he vaguely knew it had something to do with offending other people, so he'd used it. Now, with Arthur's reaction, Alfred narrowed his eyes. "I'll sue you for threatening me."

 

“Excuse me? YOU threatened me--”

 

“Also,” Alfred yelled, his voice getting louder and louder with each word, “I'll sue you for ruining my business. I'll sue you for putting undue stress on my family. I'll sue you for making Francis ruin his only pair of nice shoes because he can’t afford good things! Those shoes mattered to him, even if they were ugly! I'll sue you into the next century and don't think I won't. So FIX THIS. NOW. I don't care HOW you do it. Make all these stupid customers GO AWAY.

 

"You wouldn't win any of those lawsuits. You wouldn't have a chance. I actually have people to testify on my behalf."

 

"Doesn't matter. The scandal would be enough. And trust me, Artie--I can call you Artie, right?--Francis is FRENCH. If anyone can spread word of a scandal, it's him. You don't want to be associated with burdening a sweet family, right? With ruining a business, do you?"

 

The next words come through like ice--cold, hard, only the surface of the response peering out from the dark sea beneath. "Fine. Alfie--I can call you that, yes?--I will make your little cafe so unpopular that starving Sudanese children wouldn't eat there."

 

"Do your worst." And Alfred slammed the receiver down, furious but somehow satisfied. Yes. He showed him.

* * *

Arthur Fucking Kirkland came through. (And Alfred would have laughed at his own sexual pun, at the circumstances been a little different.)

 

Because two days later, aside from creaking floorboards (yes, floorboards, because those were rustic and cool), little dust particles and abject horror, Nineteen-Eighty FOOD was completely, totally empty.

 

Alfred’s heart settled only fractionally when Romulus, Helena and Hatshepsut entered, because of course those three would never abandon him.

 

But apart from that…

 

“Francis,” Alfred said quietly, pulling the older man into a corner. “Francis, I messed up.”

 

Francis looked from Alfred to the starkly empty cafe, his face darkening like the rumble of an earthquake. “I _knew_ this was your fault.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Thanks for reading :3 Please comment! ******


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hey, everyone, this is Immortal x Snow. First of all, I think I owe you all an explanation as to why my chapter took almost two months. To put it simply, I was very busy with work for a while. Humorously enough, I got a job in a quirky, understaffed diner much like NEF shortly after I began writing chapter one. It was meant to be a part-time job to save money over the summer, but it quickly became more than that, and I really had no time to write anything but a very important original fiction piece (because I'm trying to make it into the real world of publishing, too!). Fortunately, I left that job last week, and now I have some shard of sanity back… though it's a very tiny shard. ;)
> 
> I also need to explain how the next few updates are going to work. When I got past 10,000 words and the biggest part of chapter three hadn't happened yet, I knew it would take me a while to get something posted for you all. GB and I talked about what to do. Since she's very busy right now and I have so much left to go—and we don't want to leave anyone hanging for a while with no updates—I will be writing all of chapter three. However, chapter three will be split into a few different updates so no one gets a 20k+ chapter sometime in September but instead a series of smaller chunks throughout August. I'll be titling the different parts like so: "Chapter 3a," "Chapter 3b," etc. This way, the odd-numbered chapters will still be mine, and the even ones will be for GB. Capisce?A/N: Hey, everyone, this is Immortal x Snow. First of all, I think I owe you all an explanation as to why my chapter took almost two months. To put it simply, I was very busy with work for a while. Humorously enough, I got a job in a quirky, understaffed diner much like NEF shortly after I began writing chapter one. It was meant to be a part-time job to save money over the summer, but it quickly became more than that, and I really had no time to write anything but a very important original fiction piece (because I'm trying to make it into the real world of publishing, too!). Fortunately, I left that job last week, and now I have some shard of sanity back… though it's a very tiny shard. ;)
> 
> I also need to explain how the next few updates are going to work. When I got past 10,000 words and the biggest part of chapter three hadn't happened yet, I knew it would take me a while to get something posted for you all. GB and I talked about what to do. Since she's very busy right now and I have so much left to go—and we don't want to leave anyone hanging for a while with no updates—I will be writing all of chapter three. However, chapter three will be split into a few different updates so no one gets a 20k+ chapter sometime in September but instead a series of smaller chunks throughout August. I'll be titling the different parts like so: "Chapter 3a," "Chapter 3b," etc. This way, the odd-numbered chapters will still be mine, and the even ones will be for GB. Capisce?
> 
> Thank you all for your patience. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much I enjoyed scrawling down bits and pieces of it at work. (Shh. Don't tell.)
> 
> GB: Also, the Italics in the notes section thing RUINS MY LIFE, so I am not doing that anymore.

"Come on, Alfred." Matthew curled his arms around his knees and leaned back into his friend's couch. "He's not actually that mad."

Alfred took such a large bite of his hamburger, pulled from his stockpile in the freezer, that he almost gulped down the whole thing in one bite. A blob of ketchup remained around his mouth.

"Matt, he about threw his second-best—well, now first-best—pair of shoes at me. I think he's pretty pissed."

He sighed and took the second and final (and tiny) bite of his quarter pounder. Stress-eating as usual, Matthew thought. His older brother of sorts had a knack for bad coping strategies involving food. And alcohol, of course, but after the story of the drunken phone call to "Arthur-Fucking-Kirkland" had come out, well, he didn't dare bring up beer within Alfred's earshot again, or Francis's for that matter. After a sequence of interviews slamming their cafe—hell, in every single interview the man had done in the past two weeks, he'd more than kvetched and outright seethed about everything from their food to their hairstyles (Francis had worn a ponytail for the past week in defiance of that ungracious, ugly, uncultured bastard)—the author'd managed to guarantee that no one except the Awesome Oldies would return, along with maybe Elizabeta if her husband really needed those rolls, and that was a big if.

"He'll get over it." Matthew traced a pattern of stains on Alfred's couch. Likely from spilling coffee. Matthew was pretty certain by this point in their friendship that caffeine was the only way the man got anything done. Who needed spunk or determination or discipline when you had liquid energy within reach? "He did send me over here, after all."

"Like that means anything." Alfred scarfed the last of his second hamburger and dusted the crumbs off his hands, still not noticing the red stain threatening to dribble down his chin and onto Matthew's math book. He edged his old problem sets a little closer to his half of the coffee table. "What am I supposed to be helping you with again?"

"Calculus. I have a big test tomorrow. Over integrals and stuff."

"Francis sent you over here to have me help you with calculus." Alfred paused a second before cracking up and smacking the back of his couch just by Matthew's head. "He's clearly gone crazy."

"Come on, Alfred."

Alfred picked up his plate and, heading into the small kitchen just off the living room, set it on the counter beside a stack of dirty dishes. Matthew's morbid curiosity almost got the better of him in goading him to ask how long it had been since Alfred had cleaned his apartment, but he curtailed it just in time. He really didn't want to know how dirty the place was, after all. His friend wasn't a slob, per se—in fact, he was probably far cleaner than most single young men—but Matthew had an almost obsessive need for loaded, whirling dishwashers and sparkling countertops. He needed cleanliness for security.

He didn't like to dwell on that fact much, but he couldn't exactly help himself.

"What made him think this was a good idea?"

"I don't know. He said you knew more math than he did. And that you took a ton of calc in college."

"I didn't take a ton. I took enough." Alfred sat back down beside Matthew and picked up the textbook. "I mean, I guess I remember some of this stuff. But who needs math, anyway?"

"I do. If I want to graduate."

"Who needs gradua—"

"Al." Matthew crossed his arms and gave his friend the deadliest glare he could manage, which only made Alfred laugh.

"Okay, okay, I get it. Shut up, Al. Fine, lemme look at this."

Alfred spent the next few moments poring over the book. Matthew pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. Whereas Francis's apartment was as sweltering as the inside of a boiling kettle, Alfred's nigh full blast A/C made him shiver even in his hoodie. Al, on the other hand, hardly seemed chilly as he thumbed through Matthew's notebook, snickering at a doodle here and frowning at some scrawled numbers there. Even in his short sleeves and frayed cargo shorts, Alfred lacked so much as a goosebump.

It was during moments like these that Matthew found himself wondering once more whether his friend—more like his brother, really—was oblivious or stupid or maybe much smarter than he seemed, especially as he wrote up a series of practice integrals for him to work through while he popped over to the kitchen to brew some more—what else?—coffee. Alfred wasn't dumb, he thought as he tapped the metal end of his pencil against his lips and tried to think through each special method Mr. Van Hoffman had shown them in class long ago. If anything, the young man was just ignorant. Unaware. Unlikely to notice that he'd just poured half his coffee grounds on the floor or that his socks didn't match or that he still had ketchup on his face like lipstick gone awry (he'd even smeared it once or twice by now).

But just as Matthew knew the integrals he'd begun adding up could combine to form one long expression, so too did he know that a few (okay, many) instances of absentmindedness did not add up to an inane Alfred.

He wasn't dumb. Call him airheaded, obtuse, ditzy; add them all up, but don't box "moron" as the final answer.

Because somewhere, maybe deep down and only brought to light when needed or demanded, Alfred had a secret stash of smarts.

"Is it  _3ln|x-3|_ minus  _ln|x+2|_? Oh, and with the plus C?," said Matthew, handing Al his paper to check his work after hurriedly penciling in the oh-so-crucial "+C" (how could he have forgotten it?). The older boy frowned after a moment.

"Mm, nope, don't think so, Matt."

"Wait, what? I know I did this right." Matt gripped his pencil. "It's the partial fractions trick, right? Where you split it up? I can't think of another way to do it."

"Right trick, bad foiling. Check your multiplication around step three."

A moment later, Matthew facepalmed.

"Wow. I'm a total idiot.  _3x_  times  _3x_  does not make  _6x_  squared, Matt."

Alfred chuckled and mussed up Matthew's wavy hair. He shoved his hands away in response but couldn't help but crack a small smile. He didn't like having his hair touched. He didn't like anyone getting close to his face. But he almost didn't mind Alfred pulling out his ponytail or poking his cheek or throwing a heavy arm over his thin shoulders.

"That's better," Alfred said, giving Matthew a thumbs-up after checking over his revised work. "Only what, twenty more to go?"

Matthew groaned.

"It's midnight, Al. I get up at six-thirty. I haven't even started my French homework."

"That's easy. Just make Francis do it for you. Problem solved. What else can I fix for you?"

"That's called cheating, o brilliant one."

"Actually, it's called using your resources. Who needs school, anyway?"

"I do."

"Says who?"

"The law."

"Ah, that pesky little thing. Wouldn't it be nice if it just went away for a while?"

"You'd be dead in three seconds."

"Would not."

"Would too."

"Would not." As if to prove his point, Alfred snatched up Matthew's textbook. "Now whaddaya gonna do?"

"Hey, give that back."

Matthew was tall, but Alfred was taller and knew how to use those crucial three inches to his advantage. He held the book over his head and grinned at Matthew.

"C'mon, Al." He jumped and stretched his arms as high over his head as they would go, but he only managed to graze the slick edge of the book. "I'm going to fail that test tomorrow and Francis will kill me."

Alfred laughed, not seeing Matthew's wide eyes or hearing the waver in his voice.

"Dude, you'll be fine. Francis couldn't kill anything if he tried."

"Al—"

"Well, maybe he could kill fun. Or me. But not you."

"Al, please. Please give it back."

"Oh, all right." Alfred sat down and set his prize in Matthew's arms, ignoring the icy glare he'd gotten. "But seriously, you're gonna be fine."

"You don't know that." Matthew wanted to clutch the book tight, as if it could slow down his heartbeat a bit, but thought better of the situation and set it down on the coffee table next to his old assignments—which Alfred snatched up before he could protest.

"Matt, you got A's on, like, all of these. I mean, aside from the two here you turned in late, but whatever. You're a smart kid. Hell, you could tutor me in math. Maybe I'll have to go back to school someday and get you to do that."

"Go back? Like for grad school?"

Alfred took a long drink of his coffee. Matthew prayed he'd made decaf for once. He did have to admit that as little as he appreciated his friend's caffeine highs, he did like the earthy, full (if bitter and burned) smell of his coffee. It made him feel warm. Safe. Close.

And real. As if he hadn't fallen into a hazy, vague dream, but really had Al there with him. Really had someone to call his brother, his family, after all.

"Nope, that's not what I meant. I never finished college, Matt." He cleared his throat, seemingly trying to buy time. "I dropped out my junior year. Second semester."

Matthew paused, his mind lagging like an old computer in an attempt to process the information. The coffee was definitely closer to bitter than to rich now, and the apartment colder than ever, practically gnawing at his pulsing fingertips.

"Al—I don't get it. Why?"

"Wasn't for me, that's all." He stretched his arms above his head, his shirt inching up with them above his belly button, and yawned with his mouth wide open. "Just wasn't for me. I wasn't smart enough, and some pretty paper couldn't really fix that. Plus, it couldn't give me what I wanted. I thought my parents would freak, but they didn't mind. Didn't tell me to come home, either, but that was fine because I liked Sacramento well enough to stay."

"I—I thought you'd always lived here," said Matthew, deciding that out of all the questions blurring and whirling together in his mind, as if spun by a hiccupping, broken blender, he might as well ask a somewhat innocuous, sensible one.

"Hm? No, dude, I'm from near D.C."

"Oh." Matthew blinked. He wished he could have thought of something more intelligent, but only the obvious ran through his mind.

Alfred went to college. Alfred didn't finish college. Alfred didn't find what he wanted at college.

Did Francis know this?

"Sorry. It's not like I didn't want to tell you or anything," said Alfred, an apologetic half-smile forming on his face. He wiped his mouth after a last swig of his coffee, looking at the red stain on his hand with confusion so clear and so childish that Matthew almost laughed.

But deep down, that was all Alfred was: a big kid. A big child with a heart and sense of humor every bit as big as he was.

And, with a deep breath, Matthew understood that his childishness was the very thing he liked about his friend. The exact thing he envied the most in him. Because he wanted to be a child, too. A real child. Not the kid who looked young but had a heart twice his age and a soul so old it could shatter at the slightest touch. Not the one who had to be his brother and his father and even his mother all at the same time.

If he had been even an ounce braver, he would have reached out and given Al a hug that moment and told him everything. But the really lovely thing about growing up was that he'd gotten all the vices of adulthood without the virtues that should have balanced them out.

He was a coward.

"You okay, Matt?"

Matthew wanted to shake his head and tell the truth. Instead, he settled for the usual lie. Alfred wouldn't understand him. He had parents who loved him, who accepted his decision to leave college and live his life the way he wanted.

"I'm fine. Just still worried about the test." That much was true, he thought, reassuring himself with a mental pat on the back. "It's a big portion of my grade."

"You know what?" Alfred jumped off the couch and pumped a fist in the air. Matthew could have sworn he saw supernovae in his sparkling eyes—baby blues to match his baby face. "I'm making you pancakes, bro."

"Huh?"

"No, seriously, I got the kind of maple syrup you like and everything. I decided it wasn't that bad after seventeen or so shots. However many it was." Alfred grinned. "I got pancake mix and everything. Good old Bisquick."

Disgusted out of his silence, Matthew rolled his eyes.

"If you're going to make pancakes, at least make them from scratch. Don't use that pre-made stuff."

"Whoops, look like using Wolfram to create those integrals put too much strain on my wi-fi. Darn, how inconvenient. Now I can't look up a recipe."

"Alfreeeeeed."

But Alfred sauntered off to the kitchen and proudly took out a brand-new box of Bisquick pancake mix. Matthew wondered how much work putting Vaseline on all his doorknobs without him noticing would be. He'd totally do it if not for the test breathing down his neck.

Even so. He'd save that prank for a rainy day. Maybe, just maybe, it would cheer Alfred up.

Because Matthew could see straight through his pretend happiness into the worry that lurked within. The worry that Alfred buried even as he whisked together pancake mix with milk from his jam-packed fridge. The worry that he smoothed over with smiles and drowned out with guffaws. The worry that hurt him but could hardly compare to the insidious guilt that curled around his stomach and over his chest up to his chin, where it settled as a lump in his throat.

He'd hurt his little family by trying to protect them, hadn't he?

Francis couldn't remember having an actual fight with his son. Their home had tension sometimes, of course, but the friction never sparked an actual blaze. Not until Matthew discovered Alfred had never finished college.

The afternoon after his big calculus test, Matthew had been unusually quiet. Though the cafe had been so empty that every tiny noise—a page turning as Matthew read, the floorboards creaking as Alfred paced, metal clanking against metal as Francis whisked dough for pastries that no one would buy (except maybe Romulus, and only when Helena and Hatshepsut decided not to fight with him about his so-called "diet")—swelled and resounded against the shelf-covered walls. But Matthew made no sound at all from the moment he trudged in and sat down in his back booth to do his homework to the second he stepped outside, an ephemeral shadow from a flickering candle, following Francis home at the end of another long, uneventful day. Once more, no one had come in. Hardly anyone besides the resident apartment dwellers, Alfred's neighbors, even walked by, and when they hurried past, chattering on their phones or sipping Starbucks coffee or holding their lovers's hands, they never looked over their shoulders into the dark, empty cafe.

It wore Francis down a bit. He hadn't committed quite the money or energy or time to the place that Alfred had, true. It hadn't been his drunken mistake (to put it gently) that had strangled the whole dream. Still, despite its eccentricities (or maybe because of them; he couldn't decide), Nineteen-Eighty FOOD had become a refuge, a shelter, and maybe even a home. Especially for Matthew.

Francis would have done anything to make his son safe and at home and maybe even smiling in due time. Now Alfred had gone and destroyed his best shot at some hint of domestic peace. He'd have to search like a crazed man consumed in his quest for any other chink, any other opening in Matthew's heart.

"So—how'd your big calculus test go?" he asked that night over pungent, earthy coq au vin pulled bubbling from the oven. Cooking had always served as his source of stress relief—which, of course, had been yanked out of the picture when he needed it most. At least Matthew liked his cooking. So he thought, at least. Matthew didn't talk about food much.

"It was fine."

"Did Alfred help you study last night?"

Matthew wrinkled his nose, his steaming spoon halfway to his mouth.

"If you count burning pancakes and setting the stove on fire and then flooding his apartment as helping me study."

"I don't really want to know, do I?"

"Probably not."

Francis took a sip of his ice water from his sweaty glass. The air conditioning had broken down a while ago. He'd been saving up money to fix it, and he'd been at the landlord's door at least twice a week to complain, but both tenant and owner had expected to have until at least summer to work on the problem. Early February in California wasn't supposed to be this warm and muggy.

So when Matthew began tugging at his shirt collar and playing with his long blue sleeves, Francis assumed the heat was making him uncomfortable. Only when his son began pushing his food around with his tarnished spoon and clearing his throat did Francis begin to suspect otherwise.

"Do you want to say something?" Francis ran a hand down his short ponytail. "I mean, is there something you want to tell me?"

When Matthew ducked his head, Francis's heart sank equally low. He must have missed his chance. He'd been awaiting some sort of confrontation with his son over just about anything, really. When he thought about it, he realized that they did have quite a few things to fight about, all of which stemmed from the same fetid, bleeding root: Francis had adopted a damaged child who may not have wanted salvation.

Matthew's head came back up in a few moments. He brushed his bangs out of his wide eyes and cleared his throat again. The rough, almost ragged noise made Francis wince.

"Well," Matthew finally managed, "Al told me something."

"Mhm?" Francis nodded and raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah." A pause so long Francis thought Matthew was refusing to elaborate. "He told me he didn't finish college."

"Matthew—"

"He dropped out his junior year."

Just like that, as though he'd said nothing at all, Matthew returned to his dinner.

Francis sat still and straight in his chair, weighing his possible responses. Everything seemed as though on a balance with Matthew. Every word, every moment, every damn gesture mattered. One small misstep or careless word, and the scale would tip in the very direction Francis was dying to avoid. Even the sigh that escaped his lips seemed to make Matthew withdraw further within the crumbling, slapdash fortress he'd hastily throw up whenever Francis crossed that invisible line that his son had drawn and that he could never move one way or another. Matthew's boundaries may have looked fragile and last-minute, but Francis knew from experience that time had made them impenetrable.

"Perhaps—perhaps we shouldn't discuss this tonight, Matthew."

The lack of a response on the other end of the small metal table and Matthew's clenched fists served as silent agreement.

The fire burned out into smoldering ashes, but Francis could still feel the heat threatening to explode again.

As an author, Arthur had long since hardened himself to criticism (those fools had no idea what they were talking about) and rejection (they just didn't see his brilliance yet) from his days before his first big publishing contract. He'd learned to ignore such common idiocy. But he hadn't yet learned how to humble himself to spend any more time than necessary near the western half of the IQ bell curve.

These people weren't idiots, he reminded himself as he opened the door to Nineteen-Eighty FOOD.

"Hey, look." Alfred leaned on his broom. "It's an annoying plot twit. Get it?"

Well, perhaps they were. Alfred at least had long since fallen off the peak of the curve.

Arthur probably could have killed him but for recognizing that he was not exactly in the best position to reinjure someone he'd more or less ruined already. Instead, he traced the edge of the menu that Matthew had pushed onto the edge of his table and wondered whom he should give the neatly wrapped parcel he kept at his side in his leather messenger bag. Probably not the creepy frog glaring at him from one of the empty corners of the cafe. Maybe Matthew, ever the awkward teenager, would take it, but he had disappeared, possibly beneath the floorboards or into the bookcase.

Arthur could sympathize. And perhaps he didn't like doing so, but that didn't mean he would get off the piercing hook of guilt that easily.

"So." Alfred meandered over to his table after chatting with the trio sitting at a small table near the window in chairs as old and creaky as the customers lounging in them. Alfred forced a grin; Arthur wanted even more to punch and strangle him, preferably at the same time. "Can I get you anything to eat? Something to drink?"

"Well." Arthur hadn't opened the menu yet, and he'd taken great pains to expunge all memories of those awful food puns from his mind. "Do—do you maybe serve fish and chips?"

Alfred opened his mouth, but the creepy man's voice answered.

"But of course," he said from the corner, arms folded and expression—well, Arthur didn't care much for that expression. "It's our specialty. I'll go prepare it just for you."

"Y'know, we need a pun for that," said Alfred, turning back to Arthur after watching the other man stomp off into the kitchen. "Fish and chips. You're a writer. Help me think of something."

"I would greatly prefer not to."

"Isn't that something from a Melville story? Bartleby the Screwdriver or something?"

"Scrivener. He was a scrivener, thank you very much, and go away."

Alfred shrugged, took his menu, and hurried back to the only other occupied table, which two young men had just joined. Alfred pulled over a chair and sat down next to the old man while practically shoving a book into one of the women's faces and blabbering about something. Arthur couldn't quite make out what, not because Alfred whispered but because he spoke so quickly, an ebullient spring of excitement and energy. Even Matthew, who had emerged in a booth across the cafe with a book and glass of water, looked over his shoulder and smiled as the woman made some remark that put Alfred in stitches, wiping tears from behind his glasses and doubling over with guffaws.

With their glasses and builds and blond hair, the two boys could have been brothers but for the enormous contrast in their personalities, Arthur thought. He wondered how the three of them had banded together to create something as offensive to good taste as this cafe. He hated this part of authorhood sometimes: getting all caught up in mundane, even strange stories that swirled together around him, weaving their webs to grab his thoughts for any length of time from the swiftest of moments to his entire life. As a person, he had developed a talent for snipping those thin threads before they could entangle him for long; as an author, he filtered them out and picked the worthy tales for his books. He wrote only the best. The critics had come to expect that from him.

The clatter of a plate against the tabletop rather rudely yanked Arthur from the party he'd been throwing himself in his mind. The frog stood beside him, looking both angry and pleased with himself, pointing to a mess of tuna clearly dumped from a can on top of crumbled potato chips likely poured from the bottom of an empty Lays bag. Both Matthew and Alfred and even the three old customers stared.

"You asked for fish and chips?"

"Francis, I don't think..." Alfred hurried over, hands held up and mouth twisted.

Arthur sat staring at the plate while Alfred tried to figure out whether the "chips" were supposed to be French fries or potato chips, stuttering something about how Francis should know because he was French and that had something to do with French fries and English food, right?

"No, Alfred, I'm pretty sure this is correct." Francis smiled. "Besides, Arthur likes it. Doesn't he?"

Alfred chuckled, his face going red. For someone who had the gall to call Arthur and dub him a sexually repressed porcupine and an alcoholic caterpillar, he had embarrassment scribbled all over his face. Arthur had half a mind to blow Alfred over and stab Francis with his fork.

He folded his napkin in his lap.

"You see, Alfred—"—Arthur picked up his fork and took a deep breath at what he was about to do—"—Francis is absolutely right."

Arthur took a mouthful of the sob-worthy bastardization of English cuisine.

"I do indeed like it."

Francis's grin widened.

Alfred's jaw dropped.

Matthew's book hit the floor, though that probably had more to do with the flung-opened front door and the man running over the threshold cackling and brandishing a gun.

At the intruder's proclamation that this was a stick-up and that he needed all the money in the joint that moment, Arthur jumped to his feet, ready to push past Francis and find a way to take down the intruder. Instead of stepping aside to let him through, Alfred shrugged and rolled his eyes and muttered something about more annoying plot twits before running behind the bar and taking out—Arthur's eyes widened; where had California been when civilization had finally started to reach the United States?—a gun of his own.

"Sure thing." He pointed his gun at the crouching man. "You'll just have to get through me first."

Arthur braced himself for explosive gunfire and the acrid burn of gunpowder in his nostrils. He even bent over a little, ready to run into the fray if needed. He didn't particularly feel like wasting the rest of his career and wisdom on a sudden death, but he didn't plan on running away, either. Arthur Kirkland considered himself a brave man.

Given how he shoved Arthur back down in the general direction of his seat and sat down on the tabletop with a grumble, Francis didn't exactly seem to agree with Arthur's flashy self-portrait. Why he hadn't jumped to protect Matthew, Arthur couldn't decide. He was just planning out his own route behind the bar past the door to the kitchen and toward the other half of the cafe when the intruder fired and hit Alfred square in the chest.

"Aw, c'mon man, that's completely unfair," he said, staring down at his soaked shirtfront.

"What, that I'm faster than you?" The man laughed. "That's kinda your own damn problem, Al."

He fired again, hitting Alfred's glasses this time, eliciting a groan and a, "That's it, I'm definitely gonna kill you for this, Gilbert."

Arthur's eyebrows knitted into a hairy mustache over his eyes in utter flabbergastation as Matthew picked up his book and continued reading, the old man cheered Alfred on, and arcs of water shot across the cafe and hit the floor with loud bullet-like pitter-patters.

"What in the bloody hell—"

"And that would be Gilbert Beilschmidt," said Francis, leaning back onto his hands and watching Alfred tackle the man and get thrown into a wall in retaliation. "He does this, oh, maybe about once a week. He tried to do it during rushes, but a taser and trip to jail put an end to that."

Gilbert pinned Alfred to the wall and emptied his water gun in his face.

"I win. Bow to the almighty awesome me."

"Get off me, asshole." Alfred wiped his glasses on his still-sopping shirt and, grumbling, put a hand to his side. "Or who knows, maybe Arthur Kirkland over there'll call the police on you again. And, y'know, personally make sure Antonio won't bail you out this time."

"You mean the Arthur Kirkland? The pretentious jackass who makes more than twice a year sneezing and puking up nonsense onto a piece of paper than I do slaving away at my vitally important job every day?"

"Gilbert, you sell used furniture on Craigslist."

"Yeah, but at least I don't do stupid things like ruin my own business while drunk."

"Sounds like they're talking about you," said Francis, swinging his legs, pushing himself off the table, and mirthlessly smirking at Arthur. "Better go see what mess you've made now."

Arthur watched with narrowed eyes as the three men continued chatting beside the bar. In the corner, Matthew finally managed to turn a page of his paperback. He was a bit of an odd kid.

Arthur set down his fork after his final bite of cold, tinny tuna and crisps—certainly not chips, as Alfred had insisted he call them—that were an offense to all things English. He picked up his parcel and started walking over to Matthew's table. He'd be the most likely to accept it. Out of all of them, he had to have the most taste.

He had just reached the boy's booth and was clearing his throat when Alfred began to whine in the most pathetic tone Arthur had ever had the sheer misfortune of hearing.

"Come on, Gilbert," he said, clinking a teaspoon against the ice in the glass he was mixing. "I know it's been a few months, but man, we were doing so good until, well—yeah."

"Until you screwed up and drunk-dialed Mr. Too-Good-For-Craigslist here?" Gilbert pointed to Arthur, making Matthew jerk his head up from his book.

While Alfred hemmed and hawed his way through an embarrassed explanation—"We had gotten so busy because of—well, because of him—that I just lost it for one moment. We were doing so well; you saw it, man"—Arthur cleared his throat again and waved to Matthew.

"Hello."

The teenager flinched just the tiniest bit, his movements so slight Arthur almost missed them.

"Hi." He swallowed. "Do you need something?"

"Not particularly, no." Arthur smiled. "I just wanted to see what you were reading. You seem quite sucked into it."

Matthew held up his book and sat up a bit straighter in his chair. "It's  _Alice in Wonderland_."

"That's an excellent book." Without waiting for permission from Matthew, Arthur sat down across from him and set his parcel down on the table between them. "What do you like best about it?"

"Well, I don't really know. I guess I just like the craziness of it all. It has so many weird things going on all at once."

"Quite right." Arthur folded his hands on the table. Matthew relaxed a little and set his book down, one finger inside the dog-eared, worn pages to mark his place. "Do you read it often?"

"Every night before I go to sleep. But I've never finished it."

Arthur frowned and was about to ask why anyone would ever leave a book unfinished when Alfred's whine cut him off. No, it wasn't exactly a whine. That wasn't the right word, Arthur decided. More of a plea, pathetic as it struck him.

"You haven't given me enough time. Just a little longer. I can fix this, really."

"The same way you fixed the overcrowding problem?"

"Okay, that was low."

All the same, Alfred put down the drink he'd mixed for himself. Gilbert took a swig of his frothy gold beverage with a grin. Francis remained silent.

"What's he doing here, anyway?" Arthur asked Matthew, who didn't seem to share Arthur's interest in the conversation at the bar. "Besides pretending to rob the place. And doing a poor job of that, I might add."

"Gilbert? He and Alfred made a bet that wound up opening this café. I think they were both pretty drunk. As per usual."

"That wouldn't surprise me. What did they bet?"

"If Alfred runs this place successfully, Gilbert will call him his superior for life. And there's something about making out with Al's shoes, too." Matthew wrinkled his nose. "Now, if Al loses—"

"—Dude, it's not even like you get anything if I lose. Knock it off."

"—Well, they were so drunk when they made the bet that Gilbert forgot to make sure he got something if Alfred lost. Except self-satisfaction, I guess."

"Matthew," said Arthur, pursing his lips, "I'm sure you know this, but you have fallen in with some very odd people."

He shrugged, palms raised toward the ceiling, and said nothing.

Behind the bar, Alfred had lowered his voice and bent over, resting on his forearms, whispering something to Gilbert that Arthur couldn't hear. He hated himself for it, but he couldn't help worrying about that damn prick, much as that concern really rather sucked. Deep down, he knew that despite all the blame Alfred was clearly shouldering, he was responsible, too. Both for the cafe's wild success and its subsequent downfall.

Arthur took a long look at Matthew's copy of  _Alice in Wonderland_  and then looked all around the room. Then, he remembered. When he had first come in that night, sopping and grumpy and needing nothing more than a place to write, he had thought right away of his favorite Hemingway story, "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Of course, the cafe hadn't been all that clean until Alfred had finished his haphazard job of mopping and sweeping, and even then it hadn't sparkled. But it had been well-lighted.

And, he thought as he looked at Matthew's pink face, it had been safe. With its creaky floorboards and mismatched books and smell of fruit and Windex, the cafe had sheltered all of them. And him, too. (Arthur didn't like including himself with the lunatics who ran the place. Refuge or not, it had its fair share of kooks, as one glance at the trio at the bar reminded him.) It sheltered him from the rain with its lights shining into the shadows of a foggy street and its quiet calm in the darkening twilight that late summer night. It seemed like another world entirely, separate from the rest of Sacramento. It stayed open, lit, in the midst of the changing and hastening night engulfing the rest of the city.

He too was one of those who liked to stay late at the cafe.

"I'll be right back, Matthew." Arthur rose and walked toward the bar without glancing back to gauge the boy's reaction. He figured he could trust him with his messenger bag and parcel.

Alfred gave him a funny look that morphed into a half-smile.

"I forgot you were still here," he said. "I'll give you your check in a sec. Hey, that rhymes."

"No need." Arthur took his wallet out of his pocket and slid a crisp $50 bill across the counter to Alfred. "No, shut up, don't say anything. You'll make it worse."

Gilbert guffawed.

"Dude, you could totally get this place up and running again just with donations from this sucker." He tipped his glass toward Arthur and stifled a sequence of giggles.

"Stop. We don't need any of Mr. Kirkland's charity." Francis let each word snap like a lash from his clenched teeth. "In fact, we really don't need any more of Mr. Kirkland himself."

"I don't think I'd like any more of you, either," said Arthur, pushing the bill back toward Alfred, who had set it back down with a confused stare. "But look, part of this really is my fault, too. And at least I have enough maturity to admit that."

"Look, no one's denying blame here—"

"Yes, Alfred is actually at fault."

"—Thanks for that, Francis. But I really think it's better if you go, Arthur." Alfred's face twisted into a sad half-smile. "We'll—I'll—figure this out on my own."

"Damn right you will." Gilbert scoffed. "Good luck getting yourself out of this one. How are you going to win Sacramento's Best New Restaurant without customers?"

"We'll figure it out, Gilbert. We still have time. I can go through the apartment complex advertising to my neighbors—"

"Wait." Arthur held up a hand and paused for a second to think. "Are you offering that as a last chance on the bet? If Alfred wins that, he wins the bet?"

"How did you figure that one out, Prickly Pants?"

"I liked this place better when we only had dead writers," said Francis with a sigh and eye roll.

"Look," said Arthur, hoping Gilbert's remark had nothing to do with Alfred's oh-so-brilliant porcupine quip. The idiot in question tapped his finger against the fifty and glanced over at Arthur, who felt the familiar knotting of his stomach. He wasn't sure how, but he had developed a talent for getting himself into these situations. Apparently, the two of them shared a gift for fucking up. That would probably explain why he had to care about that arsehole. "I probably can't draw crowds again, but I can do something at least. I'll work here. I'll help. I'll do advertising or whatever you need."

"No way." Francis crossed his arms. "Someone will call the health inspectors on your eyebrows."

Alfred tried and failed to smother his laughter.

"That'd make this more interesting. Al, that's officially part of the conditions. You have to hire Prickly Pants to help you win the award. Take it or leave it."

He finished off the rest of his drink and slammed the glass down on the counter, making Alfred wince.

"And, y'know, since this guy overpaid so much—surely you wouldn't mind just sticking my shandy on his tab, right?"

"Nice try." Alfred held out his hand. "It's only five bucks with a tip. You have to make at least that much off your dumpster finds."

"They're not dumpster finds. They're lost treasures."

Still, Gilbert slapped the five into Alfred's hand, picked up his jacket with a chortle and "Good luck, sucker," and left.

"Well," said Alfred, turning to Arthur and tucking both bills into his back pocket, "I guess you're hired. That's the only way we're going to win this thing. I'll see you at eight-thirty tomorrow morning."

Francis put his head in his hand. Matthew stared from the booth, still motionless, finger still in his book. Arthur walked back to him, pushing the parcel into his hands and picking up his bag.

"Keep that," he said with a smile and pat on the tabletop. "You're probably the only one worth giving it to."

As Arthur walked out of the cafe, gripping his bag and wondering what the hell he'd gotten himself into and why he had to be a responsible, mature, wise adult, he heard the old man at the back table call to Alfred, "That's it—we'll show that knucklehead Gilbert. Fight him like a Roman, Alfred. Crush him like I did Hannibal in the Punic Wars."

"Brother," said one of the young men, "doesn't it worry you that Grandpa thinks he fought in the Punic Wars?"

"No," the other said, "what worries me is that Alfred thinks Grandpa fought in the Punic Wars."

 


End file.
